


Corpora Permutavere

by silvercistern



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bodyswap, Dissociation, Emotional Dysregulation, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-06 17:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8761663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvercistern/pseuds/silvercistern
Summary: “Akaaaaashi, you gotta make a wish after you blow them out!” Bokuto was leaning across the table so far that the candle flames danced in his eyes, turning them to molten metal. And while Akaashi found himself appreciating his teammate’s birthday fervor in a way that was soft, foreign, and somewhat unexpected, Bokuto should still have known that this level of spectacle was neither Akaashi’s preference, nor something he was entirely comfortable with. Under such pressure, he blew out the candles. Then, as requested, made a wish.   I wish Bokuto-san understood the perspective of someone other than himself. Bokuto and Akaashi switch bodies. It goes as well as you might expect.





	1. Birthday

There were six reasons Akaashi Keiji’s birthday party was hosted at Bokuto Koutarou’s home.

  1. Akaashi did not want to have a party.
  2. Akaashi did not have the space in his family’s tiny apartment to host anything.
  3. Akaashi’s parents were at a dig in Thailand.
  4. Bokuto insisted he have a party anyway.
  5. Bokuto’s mother and three sisters aggressively offered to cook.
  6. They were good cooks.



Akaashi did not like celebrating his own birthday in general. To begin with, he had very particular preferences in sweets that most confections rarely met. But that was only the icing on the cake.

Due to his parents’ well-respected but poorly-funded careers, he was used to spending December fifth alone. When he was too young to take care of himself, it was often spent in the company of his rather boring grandfather. Akaashi had always dreamed of having a grandfather with stories, who would share some kind of traditional knowledge, or even just take him fishing. But parenting an esteemed archaeologist seemed to be the man’s highest achievement in life. It had been all downhill from there. Akaashi’s only living grandparent had two interests: watching game shows and falling asleep under the kotatsu.

As a result, Akaashi’s birthdays were not really associated with pleasant memories. Not negative memories necessarily. Just neutral ones. A nod from his teacher came first. The reason she knew was thanks to the many gifts that the girls in his class had already piled on his desk. He kept a list of each item received, as well as its giver in order to return the gesture in the most platonic way possible. This was followed by an evening spent in the company of game shows and the snores of the most boring man in the world. Or, as of late, alone.

But now, sitting at the head of the Bokuto family table, surrounded by his teammates, Bokuto’s tiny father, his Amazonian mother, and his three voluptuous older sisters, not to mention the captain himself, Akaashi found himself out of his element. When a blazing cake the size of his head was shoved _at_ his head, quiet panic was only natural. He had a reputation for being icy, and as such tried to avoid open flame.

“Akaaaaashi, you gotta make a wish after you blow them out!” Bokuto was leaning across the table so far that the candle flames danced in his eyes, turning them to molten metal. And while Akaashi found himself appreciating his teammate’s birthday fervor in a way that was soft, foreign, and somewhat unexpected, Bokuto should still have _known_ that this level of spectacle was neither Akaashi’s preference, nor something he was entirely comfortable with.

Under such pressure, he blew out the candles. Then, as requested, made a wish.

_I wish Bokuto-san understood the perspective of someone other than himself._

 

 

He smashed the alarm clock to pieces. It wasn’t in the right place, so he’d struggled to find it, and when he had, he’d hit the snooze much harder than he’d planned. Shards of plastic stuck in his hand and he could feel the warm trickle of blood across his palm.

Clumsily trying to discover what had happened by feel left him with shards in the other hand too. It hurt less than it could have, but is still hurt, the pain waking him much more quickly than normal. Enough to get him to sit up. Normally he lay in bed until the last alarm went off: the one he set on his phone across the room. Too awake now, he blearily picked at his more damaged palm. He quickly discovered that his fingers were swollen, thick and blunt, and he couldn’t pull out the plastic shards.

Was he having an allergic reaction? The consideration felt unnaturally frantic, buzzing in his brain, a bee stuck between two panes of widow glass. Moving on to the next thought, even something as simple as what to do next, was impossible. He held his hands up in front of his face, assuming an answer would calm him down.

He’d always scoffed at the axiom of “knowing something like the back of your hand.” Who gave such attention to their hands? As it turned out, he was someone who did. At least, enough to know without a moment’s hesitation that the hands waving in his line of sight were not his. They were broader and shorter and the skin color was much too pale.

He looked around in the dim light. The room was not his either.

A spike of panic more intense than he’d ever felt in his life rocketed through his entire existence.

Getting to his feet was a disaster. He put a small dent in the wall shoving himself to the edge of the enormous bed. Pushing to his feet actually ended with his face plastered to the floor. He struggled to stand, then crossed the room much more loudly than he intended. All to tell himself what he already knew

He reached his destination and anchored himself by the fingertips on the end of the low dresser. With a deep gasp for air, he lifted his head up to the mirror hanging on the wall. Enormous lamplight eyes blinked back at him, bright and gold even in the early morning light. 

He didn’t mean to yell. He’d maybe yelled four times in his life.

This was the fifth.

“Kou!!!” a voice called in the next room, followed by two thumps of a fist against the wall, “Just because you insist on getting up at the ass-crack of dawn doesn’t mean the rest of us do!”

Akaashi ignored whatever sister it was in favor of running clunky, bloodied hands across Bokuto’s face. The foreign fingers grazed against stubble-lined angles. A completely alien sensation from both points of contact. Keiji’s own face was soft and smooth and round: much more so than he would have chosen for himself, but it was the hand he’d been dealt. He’d never touched Bokuto’s face to realize that he likely had to shave every few days. Never felt the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw, or the bushiness of his eyebrows.

It was unnerving to do so _as_ Bokuto.

Profoundly upsetting, actually. Akaashi was shaking in a body that wasn’t his, and his mind was racing, every normal emotion enhanced exponentially. His brain was made of nothing but panic. Akaashi was not an anxious person; he was the cool head in times of turmoil. Trying to wrangle this inner identity with current physical and emotional reality made the situation even worse. What was he doing wrong? Why was he suddenly like this?  

He didn’t hear the taps on the window until they shifted into the rattling slide of the sash being lifted. Seconds later, his own body awkwardly rolled inside the room and flopped, limbs akimbo, on the bed. He was wearing his Fukurodani tracksuit, and his hair was flat on one side. The bag Akaashi had meticulous packed the night before thudded across the floor.

“Akaashi?” his own voice asked, higher and louder and more expressive than he’d ever heard it. The rhythm of the words was unmistakable.

“Bokuto-san,” he croaked. Bokuto’s voice sounded so different as the one speaking it. Deeper, as though he were trying to seduce someone and coming close to actually succeeding.

“I sound so weird!” Bokuto gaped, the expression looking utterly ridiculous on Akaashi’s own face. “Do I always talk outta my nose?”

“Kou!” the sister on the other side of the wall groaned, “Look, I don’t care who you bring over at five in the morning but _I don’t wanna hear it!_ ”

Bokuto covered Akaashi’s mouth. Well, Akaashi’s hand covered Akaashi’s mouth with the sort of guilty, bewildered gesture that only Bokuto would use. Then it dropped.

“You’re bleeding!” he whisper-yelled. “Or, uh, I’m? bleeding? Akaaaaaashi, what’s going on?”

Akaashi couldn’t respond. He was trembling, his thoughts fluttering in an infuriating swarm. The pain in his hand was the only grounding thing in the room. The more he focused on it, the more he could organize the chaos in order to break down the situation into its constituent parts. But he couldn’t even do that very effectively. All signs just pointed to disaster.

They were neon signs, the kind that hummed distractingly.

“I,” he looked up, only to see his own face, peering down at him. They made eye contact for a single uncomfortable instant, then his own eyes turned to Bokuto’s hands.

“Did you break something?” long fingers reached out too far, jamming into the plastic instead of pulling it out.

“I smashed your alarm clock,” Akaashi hissed, the sound incredibly foreign and somewhat terrifying in Bokuto’s voice. “I apologize, but your body is very strong.”

“I know, right?” Bokuto looked up at him again, beaming despite the situation. Akaashi had never seen his eyes smile so much, let alone his mouth. “Well yours is super flexible! It was real easy to climb in the window. Ah… but it wasn’t so easy to climb the wall outside. You gotta work harder on arm day, Akaashi.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Now can we discuss the current situation?”

“Ah, yeah,” Bokuto made to pull his own body down to the floor as he sat, but just ended up flying backwards instead. “Akaaaaaaashi! If you wanna get that stuff out of your hands you gotta get down here. But wow! I’m like a tank.”

“Perhaps you’ll keep that in mind the next time you slap me on the back repeatedly,” Akaashi made to sit. Bokuto’s legs were longer and broader and much harder to fold, so he knelt instead. He tried not to notice the way Bokuto’s round ass was pressing against his heels, which only made him notice it more.

He was not _that_ much smaller than Bokuto, but he looked like it from the current angle: slim and short and… delicate. Did he really look that delicate?? How embarrassing.

“Akaashi, can you gimme your hands? Or… my hands?”

“Please don’t make the injury worse, Bokuto-san.”

“I can’t help it if you have yaoi hands,” Bokuto snickered. Akaashi’s voice did not sound good snickering. “Look at em, they’re bigger than your face.” He proceeded to demonstrate.

“I don’t know what that means,” Bokuto’s voice didn’t adequately express the weariness Akaashi already felt. 

“Oh! You know those manga for girls with the dudes getting it on with each other?”

“I am aware of what yaoi is.”

“Well, Sakura is _super_ into them, and they all have freaking enormous hands. Like yours! No wonder you’re so good at setting, your fingers are so long!” He leaned over in Akaashi’s body to examine his own hands, which were resting on his thighs.

Akaashi would not have suspected that Bokuto would yank out the first plastic shards without so much as a warning. It was the sensible thing to do, and as such, seemed outside of Bokuto’s wheelhouse. The pain was sharp, perhaps because the body was so new to him. He cried out before he could control himself and Bokuto’s voice was _so loud_.

Apparently, that was the last straw.

In what sounded like four steps, Bokuto’s closest-in-age older sister slammed open the door.

“Kou, you know, I support the two of you in whatever you’re doing, just as long as you don’t do it _when I’m trying to_ –GAH!”

Bokuto sat up in Akaashi’s body, and for the first time, Akaashi realized he was wearing nothing but underwear. Or Bokuto’s body was. And to the casual observer, there had been a head of dark hair directly in his groin.

“Just how horny are you two?” she muttered, turning to leave. “It’s so damn early for this…”

“Sayuri-neechan, come on!” Akaashi’s voice whined. “I _told_ you, we’re not–”

Akaashi punched himself in the gut. The plastic stung much worse than before.

“Sorry!” he tried his best to sound like Bokuto while he held up his hands, “I uh, kinda hurt my hands and Akaashi was helping.”

His version of Bokuto was unfortunately very stilted.

“Oh,” Sayuri blinked, sleepy enough that the excuse made sense. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but she looked almost… disappointed. “Do you need a bandage or something?”

“Nah, I got it,” Akaashi’s voice groaned.

The instant the door clicked shut Akaashi leaned over Bokuto, who was still rolling on the floor. There were a lot of questions, for instance, why his sister had assumed they were the sort of friends who fellate each other. But at the moment there were more urgent things to worry about.  

“We are making rules _right now_.”

 

It wasn’t _right_ then. Akaashi dressed himself in Bokuto’s warmup gear, packed his uniform, and they had a silent, awkward breakfast before getting on the train. There was a park near Fukurodani that would be unoccupied so early in the morning. The location made it easy to get to school. It also took them away from Bokuto’s family, since Akaashi was not confident he could maintain character in front of them for an extended period of time.

They sat side by side on the swings in an awkward silence. Bokuto used his nervous energy to spin around, until he realized Akaashi’s body got motion sickness. Then he stopped and made a very unpleasant face that grew in intensity until it ended in a belch that echoed through the still morning. Because that was how Akaashi burped when he wasn’t doing his best to be quiet about it.

Neither of them commented.

“How’d this happen?” Bokuto asked tentatively, as though Akaashi was going to yell at him. When that didn’t immediately take place, he continued. “I mean we didn’t fall down the stairs together, or knock heads, or… I didn’t think those things were real anyway, to be honest.”

“I have no idea.”

It was a half lie. Because really. A birthday wish caused all this? Completely unfeasible.

“I will do my best to figure out the cause, as well as a way to reverse our situation. Until then, we must do the best we can to avoid detection. Reaching out to some kind of authority seems unwise.”

Bokuto leaned forward in his swing, looking excited and horrified at the prospect. “Cause otherwise they’ll cart us away to the looney bin or something? Or do weird tests like we’re aliens!”

“I have no idea, but I don’t want to find out.”

“Okay, okay then, so what are the rules? Like, I guess I gotta call everybody “–san” now, right? All keigo all the time.”

He said the honorific with the gravity of a person attending a funeral. Akaashi was offended for reasons he barely understood. The irritation itched more than normal, but he sighed it out heavily in an attempt to move on. “That’s preferable, but before we cover interacting with others, there are more essential considerations.”

Bokuto made a confused face which did something to Akaashi’s eyebrows he hadn’t thought possible.

He cleared Bokuto’s throat. “I do not care if you masturbate in my body, Bokuto-san. Feel free to do so, you have my extended consent.”

Akaashi hadn’t thought his vocal chords were capable of generating the mangled noise Bokuto made in reaction but, apparently, they were.

“As long as you don’t cause my genitals any damage, take any photos, or interact with other people, you can do whatever you want with them. Or the rest of my body. I don’t have any food allergies, or any other concerns of that nature, though I’d prefer you not make me sick.”

Bokuto was slowly folding Akaashi’s body in half.

“Does this disturb you?” Surprisingly, his voice did not crack.

Bokuto lifted Akaashi’s head while keeping his body folded. He was blushing from the crown of his head all the way down to his neck. “It’s just… a lot. I mean, why would you just not care, Aggasshee?”

Akaashi shrugged, hitting himself in the face with Boktuo’s bicep. “It’s not as though certain less glamorous bodily functions can be ignored. Also, because I trust that you won’t do anything strange. If my theory based on this morning’s experience is correct, our hormonal and chemical make-up has not shifted with our minds. In that case you will find yourself in… some discomfort if you don’t ejaculate at least once a day. It will be even more difficult to maintain the façade that you are me.”

There. The most humiliating aspect, his unfortunately high libido, was out of the way. The heat on the tips of his ears was almost unbearable, and he could feel it dusting across his cheeks. Ridiculous inner questions that he would normally just notice and brush away bounced around in his mind. “What if he thinks you’re a pervert?” “What if he tells Kuroo-san?” “What if he’s unimpressed?”

The last question was the most nonsensical, so of course it stuck the longest.

“Well uh…” Bokuto interrupted him, still beet red. “Same for me, I guess.” An idea struck him and he looked up, eyes dark with intensity. Akaashi’d never seen that look on himself before, and he felt a moment of irrational pride.

“You gotta take my meds,” Bokuto announced. “If you don’t take em it’ll get messy. Even if our brain hormone stuff didn’t do what you said, I’m pretty certain my body’ll go into withdrawal if you stop taking em for a while. After practice and before bed every day. There’s a plastic pill thing with the days on it, you just gotta eat a little when you take em.”

“Understood,” Akaashi nodded, feeling the long un-gelled strands of Bokuto’s hair slap against his face. “I suppose it goes without saying that our current situation has to remain a secret.”

“Really? But Kuroo, I mean… Kuroo- _san_ could help!”

“I don’t want Kuroo-san’s help at the present time. And I doubt it would be of use anyway.”

“But what if it gets really bad?”

Akaashi sighed, “If that becomes the case, then he will be the first person we tell. Now, please explain to me the dynamic you have with your class and teachers, so I don’t come across as a lunatic. I will explain mine afterwards. We can discuss your family when it is less urgent.”

“Sure thing, _Bokuto-san_.”

 _What if he’s unimpressed?_ continued to rattle around in Akaashi’s brain throughout the entire conversation. He tried not to entertain what it might mean.

But strangely, he found that he couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story came to me through matsinko's headcanon. thanks, binnie, for letting me write it!


	2. Accidents

Akaashi’s body was kinda like what Kuroo had said one time about how astronauts get when they’d been in space for a while. Super flexible, but also with noodle arms cause their muscles atrophied from flying around all the time. Trying to do things with Akaashi’s space arms was not easy.

It had made sense to come to the gym after they made the rules. Not that there were that many rules. Just complicated ways of getting along with people that Bokuto could have figured out on his own. Anyway, they came to the gym cause they needed to practice in their switched positions. Or bodies. He wasn’t sure which to call it. But no matter how hard they practiced, Bokuto couldn’t make Akaashi’s arms set the ball across the court. He really didn’t have a damn clue how to set past the basics.

When Akaashi tried to demonstrate, he’d set the ball into the gym ceiling so hard bits of tile fell down on the court. So he had to just explain. Which he wasn’t very good at. It seemed like Akaashi would be a great teacher, but he was mostly only good at teaching things to people like Tsukki.  

But even though Bokuto had been trying to toss to Akaashi for a while and it was really frustrating, he still felt pretty calm. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t good at setting. He never done it! He was trying his best in a crazy situation. It was really nice to not feel quite so bad as usual. All the same, he didn’t feel that excited about _not_ being frustrated either. Kind of a bummer.

Akaashi seemed a lot more frustrated. Maybe fourteen times more. Maybe twenty-eight. Maybe fifty-six. Just some kind of crazy amount.

The thing was, Akaashi knew how to spike. But he didn’t know how to spike the way Bokuto knew how to spike. How would he? Bokuto was a top five ace, and Akaashi was a setter. The best setter, but a setter. A different job. And nobody could spike like Bokuto.

Ushijima couldn’t, no other powerhouse school aces could either. Nobody else in the top five, not even that jackass, Sakusa. Some guys on the national team, sure, but the only high schoolers he knew of who could _really_ pull off moves like his were from Karasuno: that baldie who had figured out how to do a sharp cut cross (Bokuto considered himself his secret senpai), and then Shorty, who was gonna be the best high school spiker in Japan once he was a third year.

Cause he’d learned from the best.

So Akaashi was having a hard time, and he was getting mad about it, which wasn’t normal. Bokuto tried to give him better tosses, but he couldn’t really. So Akaashi kept getting stuck in the net and then angrily tearing himself loose. Since his own body was made of noodles on top, Akaashi was used to yanking real hard. He was gonna ruin the net.

The bottom half of Akaashi’s body was a thing Bokuto was trying not to think about. Really it was something he always tried not to think about, because of reasons, but now it was extra difficult. Mostly because Akaashi had brought up his dick first thing, like it was the most important issue in this whole crazy mess. But also, because he’d never actually had the chance to stop and look at Akaashi’s thighs the way he had that morning when they were suddenly his. He could never go back to a life where he hadn’t well, grabbed them, and felt the strong muscles under his fingers. Especially if he was stuck living with Akaashi’s thighs for the rest of his life. They were just… really hot.

What kind of job was he going to get as an Akaashi, anyway? He’d always figured Akaashi would get a really smart job, but now he wasn’t going to be able to because Bokuto was smart at lots of things, but not smart job smart. Although, maybe now Bokuto would get the smart job, only nobody would know there was a secret Akaashi inside…

“Akaaaaaaaashi!” his voice bellowed, probably practicing to talk like him but also sounding pretty mad. Akaashi was pacing in circles, doing that thing with his hands that he wasn’t supposed to do because he was Bokuto. When Bokuto was mad he pulled at his hair, or worse. Akaashi was never mad, so it was hard to even say what he did, except the finger thing apparently.

“Yes, Bokuto-san?” Bokuto tried to sound bored and fed up, but he mostly sounded worried.

“Please tell me in detail the exact mistakes I am making.”

“Bokuto-san doesn’t talk like that, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto’s droopy eyelid twitched, which was pretty impressive, since he couldn’t even make it move half the time.

Or maybe he actually could? Maybe he’d just forgotten how after that stupid seizure. He should have practiced more... but how was he supposed to know about eyelid practice? He’d been eight!

“I am well aware, but no one else is _here,_ ” Akaashi growled. He didn’t sound like himself. Well, course he didn’t because he wasn’t talking in his own voice, but even then, Akaashi didn’t get mad like this. When he was mean, it was like a knife, not like a hammer.

“I dunno how to help,” Bokuto said, feeling pretty certain he was the worst person in the world. Only he didn’t really want to slouch in a corner or slam his head against things. Which was cool. But he also didn’t know how to act, feeling only sorta terrible.

“I just like…” he scratched the back of his head, feeling Akaashi’s hair floof around his fingers, “…half of it’s instinct! I even forget how to do it, sometimes. You know that, but then I usually remember cause I’m awesome. Well and sometimes you–”  

“Well, if I can’t learn to do this, your ‘awesome’ career is over!” Akaashi snapped, grabbing at Bokuto’s fingers and muttering to himself. “I don’t understand. That’s at least fifty moves in the future, why does it seem so urgent at this moment?”  

Akaashi was kind of going crazy.

Bokuto grabbed his hands. He had to reach up for them and they felt really thick and kind of gross compared to Akaashi’s slender fingers. But as it turned out, even though they were slim, Akaashi’s fingers were _really_ strong. Bokuto thought that grip exercise thing had just been to keep his hands busy. But it sure wasn’t. It was easy to hold him still.

“I’m gonna tell coach you’re having a bad day, okay?” he lowered Akaashi’s hands to his sides. Or _his_ hands? This was really a pain, trying to decide what to call things.

“I don’t have bad days,” Akaashi shouted. He yanked hard and put his hand on his mouth, like he couldn’t believe he’d been so loud. After a few seconds, he softly insisted. “I have to fix this. It is vital that I learn how to do this right now.”

“Well I have bad days a lot!” Bokuto tried to yell, and couldn’t because Akaashi had like, a half of a voice. “Since you’re me, guess you do too. Anyway, you can’t learn something in an hour that I trained for like six years to do.”

Akaashi didn’t seem to be listening. He looked around the gym, and then looked down at Bokuto. “You’re going to tell coach that Bokuto-san is having a bad day, then suggest we do physical conditioning for three quarters of practice. It’s what I do if you seem irritable in the mornings.”

“Huh?”

Akaashi had said it like it was just a normal thing. That he did all the time. Without even…

“Why don’t you just ask me what’s wrong?” Bokuto was pushing the limits of how loud Akaashi’s voice could be but he was finally starting to feel really mad.

“Because when I tried, it didn’t help,” Akaashi clipped his words in a way Bokuto’s mouth couldn’t really manage. “I suspected upon meeting you that your moods were chemically based. But even if you hadn’t told me about your condition, this situation would confirm them. Because currently, I want to cry.”

He stopped and took a tiny breath.

“I haven’t cried since I was ten. This is a very unpleasant experience.”

His voice, even though it was Bokuto’s, sounded… little.

Just like that, Bokuto wasn’t mad anymore. Or, he was, but he realized that since Akaashi was more important, he could shove his anger into this safe little locker he’d found and save it for later. It was the weirdest thing he’d ever felt. Not the worrying about Akaashi part, he’d felt that sometimes. It was more that he’d never been able to stop feeling anything in the middle of feeling it before.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bokuto patted his own shoulders, hoping Akaashi appreciated it.

Wow, his arms were _amazing_.

“I’ll tell the coach, and then, it’ll be okay if you mess up! I’ll tell him… that I, er, _Bokuto-san_ got mad that he didn’t get you, er, _me_ the best birthday present. Cause I was this morning, till I realized I was you.”

Akaashi looked down at him. He took a few slow breaths. “You’re completely ridiculous.”

“Agaaasheee!”

“In fact–”

Whatever Akaashi wanted to say was cut off when someone kicked open the gym door.

“Sup, virgins? Guess who got a girlfriend?”

 

It was Komi who’d got a girlfriend. He was probably still a virgin, though. Bokuto was really excited, but he had to pretend to only care a little bit, like Akaashi would, which made him feel like a jerk. Meanwhile, Akaashi decided that instead of being excited, Bokuto was going to be jealous at Komi’s new basketball girlfriend.

Pretty mean, the idea that Bokuto couldn’t be happy for his libero, and one of his best bros. What’s worse was watching the team all patting Akaashi on the back and telling him it was okay. From the outside, it was pretty obvious they were faking sympathy. Was it always like this? Bokuto felt sick.

The door opened again and Coach stepped in, pulling off his jacket real dramatic like a superhero. Bokuto was relieved to have a reason to ignore the rest of the team. He took a deep breath and tried to walk across the gym like Akaashi. He used his whole foot, starting with his heel and took long steps. But he was focusing too much or something, because when Coach saw him, he lifted his eyebrow and asked if Akaashi was injured.

Fuck. What did Akaashi call Coach?? Fuck.

“No, Coach-san,” Coach lifted his eyebrows even higher, so he’d got it wrong, “Bokuto-san is in a bad mood. He got me a stupid present, or, not the best present, and uh, anyway, he is feeling… supremely sad. So, I hoped that we could maybe, er, perhaps, stay off the court for most of–”

“Say no more, Akaashi-kun,” the coach squeezed his shoulder the way a dad might, then turned to the rest of the team. “Alright everyone, stay in your tracksuits. It’s pretty brisk out, but we’re going to get a run in before it rains!”

Everyone groaned but Akaashi. Or, “Bokuto.”

This was really confusing.

 

They couldn’t run forever, though. Well, maybe Akaashi could. Bokuto knew that Akaashi liked to run a lot, but he probably wasn’t used to running in a godlike body that just wouldn’t quit. He lapped everyone at least four times, looking way more serious than Bokuto would ever look. Bokuto, on the other hand, was pretty sick of Akaashi’s body. His thighs were made for running, maybe, but his stamina was more in his head than his lungs. Bokuto hadn’t powered through a run on self-control alone in years.

It sucked.

Back on the court was something else.  

He’d wanted to pull Akaashi into the corner, to pretend that they were having a discussion about captainy junk. But he didn’t get a chance, because the coach got to Akaashi first, and he could tell even across the gym that it was a pep talk.

Those talks were the worse. Coach didn’t get it. He didn’t get the way everything about a mistake roared in Bokuto’s head, whipping his mind around until he wanted nothing more than for Washio to punch him out, or to just melt in the floor in a puddle of misery. Akaashi probably didn’t get it either, but at least he understood that pep talks when Bokuto felt bad didn’t do anything. Mostly they made him feel worse.

But at the moment, Akaashi was flushed and more than a little bit proud of himself. The run had probably gotten him pumped. And he wasn’t used to feeling like that. So now he felt like he could do anything, probably. He looked like it.

Was that really how it was?

Bokuto leaned over and tried to tie his shoe. Even though Akaashi definitely wasn’t supposed to cry after a long run (or ever), he was blinking away tears. Bokuto had known for about a year now that his feelings didn’t work like they were supposed to. That they were wild and didn’t listen because who knew why brains were like that? It was supposed to be okay. Just a thing about him that he could take medicine for. He could practice not getting dejected all the time and his family said he was getting better. But seeing it, knowing that normally calm Akaashi was getting worked up over dumb things cause Bokuto’s brain was busted, felt a lot different. It was like Akaashi couldn’t act like himself.

So, who was Bokuto then? Was he ever himself? Ever really happy or sad? Or just worked up all the time because his head was messed up?

“Agaaaaasseeee!” his own voice called out, high and nasally and so much less cool than he wanted it to sound.

And to top it all off he apparently sounded like that all the time. Or at least to Akaashi who really was kind of the only person who mattered. If Kuroo thought he sounded dumb, Bokuto would just make fun of his hair. The rest of the team he could rag on too. But Akaashi… he wanted Akaashi to think that he was cool. Maybe because he was pretty and had really nice thighs and kind of a perfect ass. But Bokuto had those nice thighs and ass now and he still wanted Akaashi to think he was cool in a way that was more than just friendly.

This wasn’t something he liked to think about and at least today he could stop.

There was only a little bit of practice left. Most of it so far had been receives, and the second-string team had been the ones tossing and spiking. Neither he nor Akaashi were the best ever at receives, so an off day made sense. Akaashi had taken it way too seriously, though, and kept tumbling over his feet, which was weird, because he was the one whose feet were giant.

But now they were the ones doing the tossing and spiking and Bokuto was a little nervous. Mostly cause everybody spiked, but he was the only one tossing. And he was still not a setter. Maybe in a day or two, but even he’d admit he had some limits.

Washio barely got the ball over the net. Sarukui turned his spike into a feint. Konoha somehow managed to spike better than he usually did, and Onaga was tall and slow enough that Bokuto could toss to him perfect. He had to hold himself back from a victory dance when the ball slammed just outside of Komi’s reach.

Then it was Akaashi’s turn.

He was too stiff. Bokuto always tried to loosen up and then ease into a high crouch before his run-ups, otherwise they went bad. Akaashi looked more like a rock than a bird about to take off. He probably knew he was being stared at, so he turned and gave Bokuto a look. Maybe the look would have been obvious if it were coming from Akaashi’s own face, but it wasn’t, so Bokuto had no idea what it meant. Probably something like, “Concentrate, Bokuto-san.”

It was real overwhelming, trying to figure out how to toss to the spot he liked himself, wondering if Akaashi could even get to that spot, and if that was even what Akaashi meant by that look. He thought maybe if he was lucky he could get it to a place where Akaashi could hit it. If he was unlucky he would mess it up, Akaashi would just stop and pretend to whine at him like he was Bokuto.

Because apparently Bokuto whined a lot.

If he was cursed, he’d toss to a bad spot, Akaashi would try for it anyway, and then he’d get hurt or something.

Was this the kinda thing Akaashi had to deal with every time he set the ball? Jeeze.

The smack of the leather against his palms was the first sign that things hadn’t gone right. There was no whistle because it wasn’t a game or anything. The ball hovered towards the net, like a float serve, and it was going where it was supposed to. Maybe.

Akaashi was running, but he was running too fast. He was gonna take the wrong number of steps and then jump and…

The ball slammed down on the other court hard, nobody could stop it. But Akaashi was so close to the net, he had to fling back his head and chest to keep from sticking in it again.

When he landed, the wrench of his ankle sounded like a car wreck, even though it didn’t make a noise at all.

 

Coach ended practice after that.

First he sent everyone else to change, then crouched down next to Akaashi, who was trembling, biting at his lip like he was trying to tear it off. Bokuto wanted to do something but he wasn’t sure what kind of something Akaashi would do.  

“Why don’t we take you to the infirmary?” Coach was asking, just as he got close enough to overhear.

“It’s _fine_ ,” Akaashi spat. He was already doing it wrong. Bokuto would have asked to go to the infirmary right away. Akaashi would have gone with him, even if it meant missing his first class, which was his hardest. Bokuto hadn’t ever stopped to think about how nice that was.

The coach gave Akaashi a sidelong glance, “I think you’re right, Bokuto, but doesn’t going to the infirmary put your mind at ease?”

“They aren’t equipped to help,” Akaashi said through his teeth. They pretty much weren’t, but Bokuto got really nervous about permanent injury. Akaashi wasn’t nervous, though, he just looked upset. The ankle probably still hurt. Bokuto didn’t know what it felt like to hurt in somebody else’s body. Maybe it was worse than normal; Akaashi had been hurt twice already.

“He uh, watched a scary movie about nurses last night!” Bokuto spoke up. “It probably just needs iced and wrapped, right? I can help him, if somebody, er someone tells our teachers we’ll be late.”

“You’re not wrong,” Coach stroked his chin, “the nurse doesn’t really know what he’s doing. I’ll have to send one of your teammates – I’m taking my wife to her doctor’s appointment this morning.”

“Oh yeah!” Bokuto grinned. “She’s gonna have a baby soon!”

Akaashi would not have said that, but Coach was too pleased to pick up on it.

“Are you comfortable with this, Bokuto?” he looked down at Akaashi on the floor. For once Bokuto was happy to notice that the look on his coach’s face as he looked at Akaashi seemed like real concern. Not like everybody else who was just trying to trick him into chilling out.

When Akaashi nodded, the two of them helped him up, and led him into the locker rooms. Everyone else was dressed and packing up.

“He okay?” Sarukui asked under his breath while Coach asked Konoha to talk to their teachers.

Bokuto tried so hard to sound like Akaashi cause Saru would know, “Yes, I believe so. It was just the shock on a bad day.”

“A worse day than normal. He was up and down like ten times.” Saru heaved his bag over his shoulder then patted him on the back, “Well, it looks like you’ve got your hands full today, Akaashi. Let us know if you need any backup.”

It was pretty hard to move after that.

The rest of the team filed out the door. He heard Coach saying something about making sure “Bokuto” didn’t fall in the showers, but the words just kinda echoed. It was like… he wasn’t in his body anymore. Or the room. He was there, but he wasn’t. Somebody had dropped some kind of bottlecap on the floor two meters away, and he just stared at it for three hours, or three seconds, maybe, until Coach slapped him on the back and the world rushed back in just in time to see plastic wrap and ice sat on one of the benches.

All the terrible feelings got shoved into another locker in his head, and he walked into the showers to make sure Akaashi didn’t fall on his ass.

Stepping around the tile wall, Bokuto was treated to a sight.

He’d never really seen his own ass. Well, he’d seen it in the mirror, arcing his head over his shoulder. But he’d never seen it like this, sticking out while his arms were leaning against the shower wall in a pose that was kinda stressed, but kinda sexy. And _damn_ it was a fine-looking ass.

He’d seen Akaashi naked plenty of times, but never really looked cause you weren’t supposed to. He extra wasn’t since he thought dudes were sexy and also because it was Akaashi. But now, even though Akaashi was completely naked and leaning like he was posing or something, it was still just Bokuto’s body. So, he still hadn’t really seen Akaashi naked in any way that counted for much of anything. He could check out his own ass without feeling bad about it.

Akaashi probably knew he was there, but he wasn’t saying anything. Bokuto didn’t really know what to say himself. How did you tell somebody it was okay that he almost sprained your ankle while he was stuck in your body? Well, just like that probably, but he didn’t really wanna–

Wait. Was Akaashi quiet because he was staring at Bokuto’s dick? It was pretty impressive but there were kinda more important things going on. Or maybe he thought it was weird. Bokuto should probably ask at some point. Not now though.

“Your penis is startlingly large, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said, soft and sad and quiet. Not the way you ever wanted a hot guy to talk about your dick. Even if the hot guy was you. Or in you.

Not like that.

But, actually, what would it be like, to fuck yourself? Probably sorta… interesting. But not if you were sad. Or Akaashi was sad in you.

_Not like that._

Akaashi’s body blushed so easy, Bokuto could feel the heat all the way down to his new nipples.

“I’m duly impressed. So please don’t be concerned. I mentioned such things first to get them out of the way.”

Luckily Akaashi couldn’t read Bokuto’s mind quite as well as he thought. It was hard to worry about this being the weirdest conversation in his life when there was so much other shit going on.

“Can you stand okay?” Bokuto started to strip down. He really needed a shower too. They’d been practicing since six and Akaashi’s body sweat a _lot_. And maybe it would be less weird if they were both naked, instead of Bokuto-Akaashi standing around while Akaashi-Bokuto washed himself.

Even though he had permission, he couldn’t really look at Akaashi’s junk. He was hairier down there than Bokuto realized, especially his belly, but that’s about as far as he felt okay looking. You didn’t have to look to rinse off. It’d be fine.

He crossed the tiles and stood next to Akaashi, who was still leaning against the wall.

“You’re gonna give me dry skin,” he lifted his arm over his head and rinsed off his armpit with the shower head.

Akaashi turned his head a little. He was a mess.  

See, this was why Bokuto spiked his hair. Even though everybody thought it was some kind of weird bleach job, the gray parts were from that time in fifth grade when his eyebrows, eyelashes, and big clumps of hair on his head fell out. The hair that grew back was pale gray and super delicate. The doctor said it would turn back to black, but it never had. It fell to pieces if anyone dyed it, and if Bokuto cut it short he looked like an old guy. So he got a cool haircut. But it had to be spiked or _something_ , not hanging sad in his eyes like that.

He might as well just call them Akaashi’s eyes at this point.

“I’m very sorry about your ankle. I will do my best to ensure you recover as quickly as possible.”

Akaashi sounded like he was going to explode.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as gently as Akaashi’s voice would let him. Actually, really gentle. It made his heart hurt, kinda, and he didn’t get why.

Another feeling for the lockers.

Akaashi swung his head so he was completely facing him, “I cannot stop worrying, Bokuto-san. The possible futures I’m accustomed to analyze have turned on me. Every situation is poised on the verge of disaster. I cannot calm down enough to calm myself down.” He moved his hands from the tiles and started to twist his fingers. “How do you live like this? Or is it me? Are my thought processes toxic?”

Bokuto reached over and switched Akaashi’s hot water to cold.

“Sorry,” he said, but he couldn’t hear himself over the terrible screech Akaashi made.

Pretty embarrassing that Bokuto could make that kinda noise. 

 

He couldn’t hold up his towel and make sure Akaashi didn’t fall. Akaashi could have held up his, maybe, but he was too pissed and shivering to care, so he kept it around his neck. So they walked back to the lockers buck naked. Skin to skin. A thing Bokuto shoved into the lockers even though it _really_ didn’t wanna go.

“I know you’re mad, Akaaaashi, but it worked! I take cold showers all the time when I’m too hyped.”

Akaashi didn’t have much to say. He just leaned on Bokuto, favoring the ankle he hadn’t rolled. Really it seemed like he could walk, he was just scared to. Bokuto dropped his own towel on the bench for Akaashi to sit on, then dried off with his t-shirt. Well Akaashi’s t-shirt, which Akaashi’s super sweaty body had been wearing while Bokuto had been wearing Akaashi’s super-sweaty body.

It was better than nothing.

Everything still wasn’t as weird as he expected. Well, it was super weird, but for reasons other than being naked in Akaashi’s body. When he pulled up his underwear there were no incidents that required adjustments. He didn’t have to look down in general, and even if he caught an accidental glimpse of Akaashi’s dick, it wasn’t like he’d have to make awkward eye contact with himself. That was always the worst part.

That and getting looked _at_. But _if_ Akaashi was looking over, it wasn’t like he’d be looking at Bokuto. He’d be looking at himself, and if the experience was anything like Bokuto’s, he’d probably be impressed. He definitely would be. For the sake of the team, their friendship, and common decency, Bokuto had only let himself look at Akaashi’s tight little ass five times. Each one of those times had been jerkoff fuel for weeks.

Guilty jerkoff fuel. He felt sick thinking about it now.

The sound of the plastic got his attention. Akaashi was just as fast a dresser in Bokuto’s body as his own. In his uniform, he was struggling to wrap the bag of ice around his ankle. Bokuto wasn’t much better at the job, but he at least didn’t have to reach to do it. He couldn’t remember how many wraps was enough so he just did a ton.

“Thank you,” Akaashi said, sounding a lot more normal. Well, kinda. “I apologize for all of… that. This is incredibly overwhelming. I will try to contain myself in future. The cold water really did help.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bokuto loosely tied Akaashi’s shoe, and adjusted his sock while Akaashi swallowed down the morning pills then inhaled one of Bokuto’s onigiri. “That’s just my weak ankle, it does this sometimes, you know.”

“I sprain my right wrist much more easily,” Akaashi nodded as Bokuto stood up and put on Akaashi’s backpack, the jingle of the volleyball keychain he’d given him making him smile a little. He hung the strap of his own bag against his forehead and the held out his hand for Akaashi to take.

“I wasn’t being facetious.” Akaashi looked up but didn’t take his hand.

“Ehhh?” Bokuto didn’t know what “facetious” meant. Or really what that sentence meant at all.

“I wasn’t joking when I said–” Akaashi grabbed Bokuto’s hand midsentence and pulled. But he was strong now and Bokuto wasn’t anymore so what ended up happening was Bokuto got yanked down until they were face to face. Akaashi had surprised himself so much with the whole situation that he hadn’t stopped talking.

“–your penis is staggeringly large,” he told Bokuto while they were nose to nose, looking each other (or themselves?) in the eye.

Bokuto’s bag swung around and hit both of them in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, if it isn't already apparent, most of this story is about where personalities live, how they're affected by the way we have trained our brains to behave, our everyday choices, our brain chemistry, and so forth. it's mostly a question of where do the body and mind begin and end? 
> 
> please don't use it as a self-diagnosis tool, especially since no actual mental illness is going to be named. i am utterly certain that some of this is wrong. in fact, neuroscience/psychology has no idea about half of these things either. but i do strongly believe that if people swapped bodies, inhabiting someone else's brain would be the most traumatic part of the experience. obviously i have a lot of bokuaka feelings specifically about that but you're reading them.
> 
> also, i figured/have been informed that they probably wouldn't have showered but i won't let the rules stop me.


	3. Rain

As Coach predicted, it rained. More specifically, it started raining the instant they left the gym. A cold December rain that soaked through to the bone. Neither had brought an umbrella in the early morning chaos. The only way to reach the school entrance was to cross the covered sidewalks that connected it to the athletic complex. Unfortunately, about half the way was under construction, open to the rain. They couldn’t rush for fear of Akaashi turning Bokuto’s ankle again. So they walked, bags over their heads, hoping their books weren’t ruined.

When they finally arrived outside of Bokuto’s classroom, they were both drenched anywhere their coats hadn’t covered.

“I don’t have any exams today, Bokuto-san.” Bokuto was making Akaashi’s voice sound much too bright, even with chattering teeth. They had arrived in-between classes, and Bokuto’s classmates could clearly hear them. They had no reason not to pay attention to the freezing, dripping idiots in the hallway.

“You’ll be fine,” Bokuto smiled like he wasn’t supposed to. He smacked Akaashi’s back, wincing immediately afterwards.

Served him right.

 

“Here.”

Before he even stepped fully into the room a sort of generically handsome student waved a towel in front of his face. “Dry yourself off, _ace._ You should get out of those wet clothes. Change into your volleyball uniform, maybe? Wouldn’t want our star player to lose nationals for us twice in a row, now would we?”

Akaashi did not intend to take the towel. It would be preferable to freeze to death. But considering retaliatory options proved unnecessary because four other students immediately got in the handsome student’s face.

“You’re a dick, Nakihara,” the smallest, a rather adorable girl, spat. She then proceeded to chew him out so loudly and quickly it was impossible to really tell what she was saying.

 _Don’t talk to Nakihara._ Bokuto had muttered with his chin tucked into his neck as he twisted on the swing. _He’s a dick. His friends are too_.

Well, it wasn’t as though they had nametags.

The tallest of his four saviors ran over to his desk and dug in a sports bag – basketball probably – before rushing back.

“Here you go man,” he sat three towels right on Akaashi’s head with casual physical familiarity. Akaashi was unused to anyone but Bokuto himself getting into his space, though for his part he always kept a respectable distance between them. It was hard not to step away from the stranger on reflex alone.

“Are you alright? Is your ankle okay?” another one asked, a shorter boy with a buzzcut. One of the stars of the soccer team, if Akaashi remembered correctly.

“Yeah!” he gave an exaggerated shrug, which made the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt and jacket chafe against his forearms. Luckily, his uniform had been protected by his coat, otherwise he really would have to change. “Just twisted it. The ice is just in case.” It was more syllables than Bokuto would have used, but he’d given it his best.

The short girl came back and punched him in the arm, growling that he’d _better_ be okay. It was somehow meant to be encouraging. Luckily Akaashi didn’t have to try to guess at their names, because the math teacher had entered the room and everyone was taking their seats.

Bokuto’s seat was in the front of the class, directly in the center. _It’s so I pay attention_. he had said sheepishly, the words sounding sloppy and cartoonish in his mouth.

Akaashi’s mouth.

This confusion had to _stop_. Bokuto’s body was Akaashi’s own for the foreseeable future. He would now refer to it as his, and his former body as Bokuto’s because this mental juggling was causing even more strain on his already exhausted mental facilities.

“Did Akaashi like his present?” a voice next to him whispered while the teacher painstaking wrote a series of problems on the board. He turned his head slightly, then all at once like Bokuto would, revealing an eager girl with a crown braid made from hair that was too short and too fine. She was wearing as much jewelry as the school dress code would allow. Perhaps a little more; most of it was hidden in her uniform. It all seemed to involve anime characters on ice skates. He recognized them from a certain gay lifestyle blog that he followed.

“He did,” Akaashi responded, trying to be excited and whisper at the same time, “I knew it would be the best one.”

It really had.

“I told you!” she smiled. “You know him better than anybody else, of course you’re gonna get him the best present.”

“Thanks,” he took a deep breath and tried to relax into what he knew had to come next, “Hoshi-chan!”

She giggled and began to quietly babble about the romantic Christmas she had planned for her girlfriend. He tried to follow what she was saying, but it was difficult because she kept referencing prior conversations and the sound of the squeaky chalk on the board reminded him of just where he was. But more than that, he found himself mesmerized by the way the lines scraped across the board.

Hoshi cleared her throat in a way that made him turn to look at her again. She was spinning her necklace. Two ice skaters, one with grey hair and one with black twirled around each other as she gave a sly grin.  “You should ask Akaashi to do something with you for Christmas…”

“Excuse me?” he squawked, just as the teacher stopped writing.

The teacher turned, a cruel smile on his face, revealing the problem he’d written, “Excuse you indeed, Bokuto-kun. Since you’ve so happily volunteered, please, calculate the limit as x approaches infinity.”

 _My math teacher’s a dick too_.  

“Remember what I said, Kouchan,” Hoshi whispered, anxious but trying to be reassuring. “Just try to focus, you know how to do it! You’re the one who taught me.”

Akaashi did not know even know what a limit was. His exam scores in math thus far had required copious studying. What’s more he was studying trigonometry. This was advanced algebra. He was going to do terribly, but the atmosphere of the room indicated that such an eventuality was expected, anticipated, or dreaded.

He lifted himself out of his chair and accidentally shoved his desk a meter in front of him. Everyone laughed, some much louder than others.

There were three potential reactions in the face of such embarrassment. Bokuto would: A. laugh too and shrug it off, B. protest that it was his ankle for some reason, or C. march in complete humiliation to the board. C was the most unlikely and also the most mortifying for Bokuto, but it was also easiest option for Akaashi to pull off. He was worried that if he got too excited he’d be once again unable to calm down. His responses needed to be as measured as Bokuto could give on his best day.

“I twisted my ankle during practice,” Akaashi said with the same passion he would give to reading a dictionary out loud. Overdoing it, he inadvertently used B to make C essentially a given.

The limp to the board was extraordinarily long and awkward.

 

He watched the rain as the teacher spent the rest of the class berating his pathetic solution. Akaashi had never had a teacher this bad in his life. Usually they worked with the class to guide a struggling student. But apparently, Ueda-sensei did not care about modern Japanese pedagogy. No wonder Bokuto was so embarrassed about failing his math tests. It was clear he was hardly a model student, but he seemed understand the basic concepts until his teacher inserted himself into the equation.

Akaashi could not be humiliated by such an incompetent asshole, but he was not himself right now. Based on Hoshi’s reaction, as well as the students who had come to his aid at the beginning of class, Bokuto was frequently the object of some kind of ridicule and it got to him often enough. The idea of anyone outside of the team daring to mock their captain angered Akaashi in a way that had nothing to do with his current brain’s capacity to restrain emotion. He tried his best to channel his cold fury into a weight that kept his head resting on his arms. In such a position, he stared at the trails of water that ran down the windows and idly wondered how he could orchestrate a teacher’s forced retirement.

The wildness that had run through his mind that morning had calmed somewhat. The unexpected cold shower had halted the vicious cycle of anxiety over all of Bokuto’s potential futures that he could destroy. Now he felt exhausted, wrung out, though it was easier to think clearly. But still not as easy as it might be. He was now in possession of a brain that ran much faster than his, but wore itself out just as quickly.

That difficulty aside, the range of emotions from the morning far surpassed anything Akaashi had ever experienced or understood. He couldn’t decide if he hated it, or if it was the most sublime experience of his life. The run during practice, something he typically enjoyed very much, had risen to another plane of existence entirely. It was as though he had been physically lifted by his endorphins and carried through the air. But that same energy took his predisposition to organize, manage, and manipulate the world around him and exploded it into a world of anxious possible futures.

There was no question that Bokuto’s experience in his own brain was different. Akaashi was not concerned in the slightest what people thought of him, while Bokuto was desperate for praise. Bokuto rarely worried himself with the future, and yet anxieties over every possible eventuality were spiraling out of control in Akaashi’s mind. It seemed that their most urgent considerations rose to the top and then were impossible to push away despite more practical matters.

He had always on some level known that Bokuto’s behavior came from a deeper place than just being the bratty youngest child. In fact, Bokuto had told him as much last year when he awkwardly explained his first visit to a psychiatrist. But there was a difference between knowing and experiencing.

A very large one.

 

“Now,” Hoshi said in a voice that was certainly intended to cheer him up, “we are going to talk about Akaashi whether you like it or not.”

_Try not to talk to Hoshi too much. She’s really cool but she has crazy ideas sometimes. Really crazy, I mean, Akaashi, you would not believe the stuff she says!_

Akaashi grunted, barely audible over the chatter of others in the class. It was thundering outside, enough of a rarity for the English teacher, an older woman from America, to give them time for “conversation practice” while she listened to the sounds of the thunder wistfully.

“Look, you can’t play dumb with me. I know you like boys just as much as girls. Plus, you can’t talk about someone _that much_ and not have some kind of feelings, best friend or not.”

Best friend?

That’s what Bokuto called him?

“See!” Hoshi leaned over across her desk, “You’re blushing! You like him, just admit it! I don’t even get why you’re scared. Look, I know, you’ve never been confessed to, but that’s only because people are dumb. If you were a girl I’d be all over you, you know. I like my ladies muscular.”

Bokuto would probably preen at a statement like that, so Akaashi tried, but the current situation made it challenging.

Was Bokuto his best friend? He could count the number of friends he had on one hand, but he never even counted Bokuto within that number. Bokuto was… well, he was a teammate of course. And teammates were not necessarily friends. They were simultaneously more and less. But even among his teammates, Bokuto seemed to be something else. Whatever that something was, it was a position that only he held.

Akaashi had always assumed that the obnoxious middle blocker from Nekoma was the person Bokuto considered his best friend. Actually, if Akaashi hadn’t overheard the two of them earnestly discussing Kuroo’s romantic woes in regards to his setter, he would have just assumed that Bokuto was madly in love with the utter pain in the ass. He certainly talked about him enough. This proved, then, that talking frequently about someone could not be an indicator of romantic interest in Bokuto’s case. Hoshi was confused.

“What makes you think I like him so much?” the question was a gravely whine and Akaashi had no idea how it had escaped out of his mouth.

Hoshi rolled her eyes. They were a beautiful obsidian and he assumed her girlfriend probably loved to gaze into them. The thought struck that he had stared into his own eyes that morning. They weren’t really as cold as everyone implied, but Bokuto had been the one behind them.

“I’ve told you like twenty times. We talked about what you wanted to get him for like, four weeks before his birthday. Every morning after practice you can’t go without mentioning his name every other minute. You talk about him constantly.”

“I talk about Kuroo too!” he objected with reasonable hope.

“Kuroo agrees with me!”

Akaashi accidentally shoved his desk across the room.

The teacher, Miller-sensei, smiled at him. “ _Don’t get too excited,_ Bokuto-kun _,_ ” she said.

“ _Sorry,_ Miller-sensei _! I forgot my own strength,_ ” Akaashi replied, unsure how to sound sheepish but trying his best.

The woman’s eyes opened wide, and half the class gasped.

Oh. That had been in English.

Bokuto was terrible at English. Akaashi, on the other hand, was fluent, having spent the first eight years of his life moving around the UK as his parents went from job to job. He didn’t even have to take the class. In fact when it came to writing, he felt his English was stronger than his Japanese.

“Have you been practicing with that setter of yours?” Miller-sensei beamed, her accented Japanese more challenging to understand. “I know Akaashi-kun is a proficient speaker but I had no idea he was such a talented tutor as well!”

Akaashi was perhaps the most incompetent tutor in existence.

“I’ve been watching a lot of American tv too,” he attempted to defend himself. Well, his other self. Actually it was less of a defense and more of an insistence on actual reality.

“ _I am happy to hear it,_ ” she switched back to English.

He nodded, grinning so much that it hurt. He was probably wincing in actuality.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Hoshi tipped her head smugly. He taught you _English_.

“Pardon me but I need to use the restroom.”

That was not what Bokuto would have said.

 

He pulled off the plastic wrap and the bag full of cold water then threw the whole mess in the trash before unrolling his pant leg. It was wrinkled and sloppy, with damp spots from the melted ice. Perfect for the part he was playing.

Thankfully no one came in the bathroom during the long period where he stood in front of the urinal. Because although he’d certainly chosen an opportune time to leave the classroom, the reasons hadn’t been contrived. He had to piss. That wasn’t a big deal. He’d already had a long look at Bokuto’s penis in the shower. If he were the sort of person to feel jealous over such things, he’d have certainly been envious or perhaps even impressed, but since he was not, he wasn’t. Not at all.

But there was a difference between looking and what had to take place.

“Like ripping of a bandage, Keiji,” he muttered, pulling down his fly, trying to find a distracting thought.

It was not difficult.

Once the immediate weirdness was over (really just a difference in timing) the flurry of overwhelmed, outraged, humiliated, and bewildered feelings from the morning began to clamor for attention. He was proud of himself for holding them back for so long. It was hard to understand how Bokuto did it, because certain ones were piling up instead of clearing themselves away. Sorting through such chaos was a painstaking process. Some concepts were loud and demanded attention, and the only way to ground himself was to focus on physical reality. Which, he’d prefer play out on its own.

He put his free wrist against the cold tile and tried to think about that.

Out of everything Hoshi, Miller-sensei, even that Nekoma bastard had said, nearly all of it was speculation. The way Hoshi had addressed the subject clearly indicated that it was something she regularly pushed, not something that Bokuto had ever said himself. So Akaashi was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, if he could calm himself down enough to do it.

But Bokuto had unquestionably told her that Akaashi was his best friend.

A shake and a zip and it was done. Not as bad as he’d expected, though something he’d rather not get used to either. He briefly imagined Bokuto in the same position, then let out an unexpected bark of laughter as he went to wash his hands.

“Bokuto says I’m his best friend,” he said to the mirror, as though the Bokuto reflecting back at him could add his own commentary.

What was a best friend, anyway? Until Fukurodani, he hadn’t stayed in one place for more than three years at a time. His parents worked for a scientific foundation, not a university. They went where they were sent and stayed for as long as it took. There had been a few birthdays together in the middle of nowhere. Birthdays apart more often than not.

There was another flash of light, followed by a clap of thunder that rattled the windows. He hadn’t heard a storm this loud since the summer he’d spent in Cambodia. This degree of thunder and lightning were a rarity in Tokyo. Especially in the winter. It had to be climate change.

This wasn’t what he was supposed to be thinking about. Gold eyes blinked back at him, atypically judgmental. Not a good look on Bokuto’s guileless face.

He’d always assumed a best friend was someone you knew for more than a schoolyear or two. Someone with whom you shared everything: secrets, deep feelings, dark worries. But those had always been things that Akaashi never shared with anyone, certainly not Bokuto.

And yet, there wasn’t a word for what Bokuto was to him. He was certainly the only person Akaashi felt even remotely comfortable switching bodies with, which was ridiculous considering Bokuto was _Bokuto_. He wasn’t really a friend, at least not in the casual way Akaashi preferred. He was more than a teammate, certainly. He was someone who needed taken care of, and then abruptly took care of everyone. Someone… bizarrely interesting… energizing… unexpectedly gentle…

Bokuto’s face wasn’t as soft with Akaashi behind it. He missed that softness. He hadn’t even realized it existed before… no, that was a lie. It had been creeping up, again and again, both in Bokuto’s behavior and his own heart. There was a place in his mind where he locked away Bokuto’s admirable, no, attractive qualities and his own reactions to them. Instances that he insisted were nothing but freak occurrences. December thunderstorms.

But this brain did not have locks.

What would it be like, to have a best friend? It was a nebulous title, if Bokuto could give it without Akaashi’s knowledge. Was it something that Akaashi even wanted? And if it was, if he told Bokuto that they were, in fact, best friends, would anything change about their current dynamic? Would the soft ache that was slowly growing into a low rumble of both terror and excitement go away?

Bokuto’s eyes glowed with the next flash of lightning.

Did he want it to?


	4. Firsts

“Akaashi-kun!”

_I rarely speak to other members of my class unless they come to me first. My friends are in other classes and clubs, one is even at another school far away. Typically we only speak online._

Lots of people wanted to talk to Akaashi. They wanted his notes, mostly, so Bokuto was supposed to say he’d forgot them at home. Not just anyone was allowed to borrow Akaashi’s notes and since Bokuto didn’t know who the special people were, it was easier just to lie. He’d told Akaashi in the park that his classmates must all want them because Akaashi was super smart, but Akaashi’d shaken his head and said he was just good at taking notes.

Which made Akaashi forgetting his notes not a very Akaashi thing to do. But Bokuto was not a very Akaashi-type person even though he was inside him for the time being.

Not like that.

Akaashi’s seat was by the window, the spot where the heroes in anime always sat. Bokuto wasn’t allowed to sit there because he didn’t pay attention. So he didn’t pay attention through the entire morning. He watched some crows fooling with something shiny, and a cat hanging around the dumpster. There was this plastic bag stuck in a tree that moved in a cool way so he watched that too. Since no one was watching him, he drew all over one of Akaashi’s blank notebooks.

“Akaashi-kun!” a girl’s voice said again, kinda annoyed this time, and he realized someone was calling him.

“Hey!” he said, turning to face whoever it was and just about to smile. Too excited. Too happy. He tried to make his face into a bunch of flat lines.

“Akaashi-kun, why are you drawing pictures of yourself?”

Oh shit. He hadn’t covered them up. But at least he knew he was getting good enough that she could tell who he was drawing. “It’s… uh… for a bet with Bokuto-san!”

The girl was medium sized with a sharp short haircut that came to points by her chin. She looked like she was probably really good at drawing mostly perfect circles. She also looked like she thought he was crazy at the moment. Which he probably sounded, because he wasn’t answering right.

“Are you okay, Akaashi-kun?”

Bokuto thought long and hard about what excuses he could make, which was dumb because the answer was that Akaashi would never say if he wasn’t.

“Thank you, I’m fine. This is just a silly thing Bokuto-san is making me do.”

“You keep saying that name, but who is… oh! The volleyball captain. The crazy one!”

“I’ve never called him crazy,” Bokuto hoped.

Perfect Circle laughed. “Of course not, Akaashi-kun, you would never call anyone crazy. Although you do have to put up with him quite a bit. I’ve heard he’s a handful.”

Bokuto put the feelings of hurt and shame into a locker.

“Or so I’d gather,” she smirked. “I wouldn’t want to imply that I’d broken through the ice and you’d told me something personal.”

He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t be wrong, so he just said nothing. He was about sixty percent sure Perfect Circle was insulting Akaashi for being quiet about his own stuff. He’d never met someone with a death wish before. Bokuto wouldn’t hit a girl himself, but Suzumeda sure would if he told her about it. Not to mention that Akaashi was really, really scary, and could probably mess up her life in some secret way.

Or maybe he wasn’t quite as scary as Bokuto thought, if his classmates talked to him like that.

“Anyway, I’m not here to chat,” she crossed her arms. She had elbows that could probably poke a hole in somebody. “Aya-chan is at the vending machines. She’d like to talk to you.”   

He didn’t realize that his jaw had dropped until Perfect Circle started laughing. “You don’t even know who I’m talking about, do you? _Sato-san_. And don’t act like you don’t get at least a confession a week. I told her that she wasn’t your _type_ but she insists she can convince you otherwise. Don’t make her cry. Or make her, she might give you a black eye.”

Bokuto stood up as straight and as cold as he thought Akaashi would. And then he said something that Akaashi probably wouldn’t, but he was still proud of it anyway.

“I don’t think you know my type.”

 

He wasn’t sure if he should rush down or take his time. Akaashi went to the vending machines a lot to buy a drink before they met up to eat, so Bokuto was a little worried he’d run into him if he went down too fast. Although, he could give some pointers, so maybe he’d be better off if that happened.

Either way, he had to take a piss so he stopped at the restroom first. He’d been holding it in since practice, and it was probably going to kill Akaashi if he held it any longer. Or maybe it would kill Akaashi’s body and Bokuto’s mind. Or maybe he’d kill both of them somehow. So he had to take a piss in Akaashi’s body to keep everybody alive, even though he didn’t want to at all.

With this confession business, everything was rushed. He didn’t have time to figure out the best way to ignore Akaashi’s dick while also using it: just went into a stall, wrapped his hand in toilet paper, looked at the ceiling, and hoped that he didn’t miss.

Luckily, he was distracted. It was easy not to think about what was going on which was good since it was taking _forever_.  

_A confession a week???_

Akaashi turned down so many girls that their mean friends got in his face about it.

Perfect Circle hadn’t just been mean about that, though. She treated Akaashi like he was some kind of really cold person, which Bokuto knew couldn’t be true just from watching him with the team. Saru made Akaashi laugh almost every day with jokes that Bokuto didn’t even sort of get. Akaashi’d given advice to Komi about getting a girlfriend that somehow worked. He talked to Washio about how they both made little kids cry on accident. He had inside jokes with Suzumeda that were sort of terrifying. Yukie was running some kind of underground betting ring with him. He and Konoha talked so much it made Bokuto jealous, and…

Jealous?

Why did he feel jealous of Konoha?

The nice thing about being Akaashi was that it was a lot easier to stay calm. The bad thing about that was, it made all the things he’d learned to do in therapy almost automatic. So he had to think about his feelings in a slow quiet way, or put them in the lockers. And the lockers were getting full.  

Well he was jealous about the confessions for sure. Nobody had ever confessed to him, even after the team had made it to Nationals for the first time in three years all thanks to him. And the rest of the second years too. And Akaashi! But especially him cause he was the ace and the team was on his shoulders. Even after that there was nobody. No girls, no boys, nobody else. And that didn’t make any sense, since he was awesome, and had confirmed that morning that he had a really nice ass.

Everybody knew that.

That didn’t make the jealousy go away, but the leftovers were smaller and about something completely different, so he shoved them in a locker while he zipped up and left the restroom.

 

Sato-san was one of the prettiest girls in Fukurodani. Bokuto had seen her lots of times, in the halls with her friends, her long straight hair flipping around behind her like it was doing a little dance. She had a really nice body too, chubby and perfect. He’d always thought about talking to her one day, but he always forgot. Which was maybe good since he hadn’t even known her name to begin with. He just called her Flippy Hair in his head.

And here she was, standing with her hands behind her back in front of the vending machine. Akaashi was supposed to be here getting a cold Pocari Sweat but he wasn’t. Bokuto was stuck doing this alone.

“Akaashi-kun,” she said in a normal voice. She had an okay voice. But mostly just normal. For some reason he kinda figured that anybody confessing to Akaashi would sound like an angel instead of just looking like one.

One of the lockers in his head started to rattle.

“Could we go somewhere a little more private?” she said. She wasn’t nervous. He figured she’d be nervous. He was about as gutsy as they come, but he’d be nervous as hell if he was confessing to Akaashi.  Not that he would do that. Akaashi was his best friend and that wasn’t what you did to your best friend. They were separate things and separate feelings. You couldn’t have both.

There were a lot of ways to say “yes,” to Sato-san’s question, but not a lot of ways Akaashi would say it.

“If you’d like.”

The place where people always confessed was a grassy spot between two parts of the main building. But it was winter, and it had just rained a bunch, so she took him to a spot on the covered sidewalk. It didn’t seem very private, anyone who went to the vending machines could see them if they looked around the corner, but he figured that just meant nothing weird would happen. Standard confession that he couldn’t mess up.

He put his hands behind his back like Akaashi might, and tried to have a flat kind of face. Akaashi definitely wasn’t interested in this girl. If he had been he would have said something that morning, since he was comfortable enough to talk about Bokuto jerking it in his body. But he hadn’t said anything about confessions at all. So… _maybe_ he was interested and it was just too private to tell Bokuto about. But probably not.

“I’m sure you know why I’m here,” Sato-san smiled. Her smile was sorta… well, it was nice, he guessed. Plenty nice for him, actually, but not really at Akaashi levels. She looked like she knew what was gonna happen in the end but was trying anyway, which Boktuo thought was ballsy as hell.

“Yeah, I kinda guessed,” he said, and her smile got weird. Probably because Akaashi would not have ever said it like that.

She reached for his arm, sliding her fingers down his jacket until she pulled his hand loose and was holding it. Was this what confessions were like? He’d thought there was a lot more sputtering and bowing and a lot less touching. No touching at all, really. He definitely wanted to sputter. But Akaashi wouldn’t do that so he just made a little hm noise.

“I really admire you,” she started. At least this part made sense. But then she ran her thumb across his knuckles and it felt really good.

Akaashi really was a blusher.

“I know that lots of girls probably tell you they like how athletic and handsome you are,” she kept moving her thumb. Bokuto knew he should probably move his hand away, but he was frozen in place. Her voice was sort of overdramatic and now he thought that maybe Perfect Circle hadn’t been joking when she said he might get decked.

“But I like you because you’re so cold, so distant. You’re like a prince, trapped in ice…”

She took a step forward, grabbed his tie and yanked so their faces were even.

“…I want to melt you, Akaashi Keiji.”

Bokuto didn’t really expect his first kiss to be so… suggestive. But then he also did expect it to happen in someone else’s body. Did that make it his first kiss, even? Was this Akaashi’s first kiss? Or were he and Akaashi sharing this kiss as their first?

That wasn’t really the way he’d imagined it, the few times he’d let himself think about it.

As first kisses go it was kind of bad, at least compared to what he thought it’d be like. There was definitely a lot less of “him agreeing to it” than he’d like. And some specific stuff that he was only now realizing had kinda always been part of his fantasies. He pulled away, trying to think of the strongest way Akaashi could reject her while still sounding like himself, when he heard it.

“AGHAASHHIIIIII!”

“Oh,” Sato-san sighed, “it’s him.”

Bokuto turned around to see Akaashi making a very angry face. He squeezed his Pocari Sweat can until it popped, and then stomped away, still with his neat steps, except they were hitting the ground hard enough to pop through to the other side of the world. For pretty obvious reasons, Bokuto needed to run after him, but if he didn’t end this right Akaashi might have a really scary girlfriend.

“You seem like a nice girl…” he started.

“I’m not,” she sang.

He cleared his throat, “Then, um, you seem like a girl.”

“Do you not _like_ girls?”

Bokuto was like, seventy percent sure that Akaashi did not like girls, but he wasn’t gonna out him to this crazy person. He wished Hoshi was here, or even Nakihara. Maybe he and Sato-san would fall in love and be happy together here in this damp spot within yelling distance of the vending machines.

“I don’t like you,” was what he said. Which was maybe short enough for Akaashi, but not polite enough at all. But he couldn’t take it back, so he just bowed. “You’re beautiful and spirited,” _where had he even come up with that?_ “and I’m sure you’ll find someone much more interesting than myself in no time.”

She wouldn’t not ever find anybody more interesting than Akaashi.

Bokuto stood up and waited to get punched, but Sato-san was biting her lip and sniffling to hold back tears. He did not like to make anybody cry, even terrifying girls who just went around stealing first kisses.

“You really think so?”

This was terrible. It was a good thing he could stay calm in this body because otherwise he’d be freaking out.

“Yes. I really don’t like you.”

She laughed, loud and kind of obnoxious and it made him feel a little better and a little more terrified.

“I meant… the beautiful part, and all that.”

Was she kidding? He’d… well, he didn’t want to say, but how didn’t she know? “Oh! Everyone thinks you’re beautiful. Bokuto-san says you’re one of the prettiest girls in the–”

“Wait. Are you two really together? I thought that was just a nasty rumor. Did I just mess stuff up for you?” she wiped her eyes on her sleeves, which made Bokuto happy to see since Akaashi always said it was disgusting when he did that, and she was too pretty to be disgusting so Akaashi was wrong.

Also, she had no idea that he and Akaashi were _super_ a thing, but not the kinda thing she was thinking about.

That wasn’t ever going to happen because Akaashi was his best friend, and you couldn’t be both and his friendship meant more especially now all this had happened and… he shoved the rest of wherever those thoughts were going to be into a locker, but he was running out of space and everything was just so _much_ and…

Her lips had sparkles on them. They hit the light when she talked, and he couldn’t hear her because of the buzzing in his head. Everything was slow and quiet except there was so much pressure and then he was floating out of Akaashi’s body and maybe flying back to his own.

“-oh shit, I did, didn’t I?!” was the end of her sentence. She was yelling and that pulled him back or woke him up? He really didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

“We’re not together. He’s just my captain,” he took a deep breath, hoping maybe she’d be nice and not say anything. But he couldn’t out Akaashi, no matter what. So he’d out himself.

“He’s probably mad that I had my first kiss before he did.”

Well he still outed Akaashi a little. Assuming he’d never been kissed before which was something for the lockers, except they were full.

She covered her face, looking humiliated, which was pretty much the last thing he expected. “Oh. I… I’m so sorry, Akaashi-kun. I just thought that maybe if you saw how gutsy I can be you’d accept my feelings. I mean, I _am gutsy_ , but girls aren’t supposed to be, you know. But Bokuto-kun’s so brash and you like him so much, everybody knows that. I thought maybe… that was the sort of person you like, since you don’t really talk to anybody else.”

Bokuto didn’t know what to say. It was like everything in his head was strapped down and he couldn’t find any reaction or anything. Or words.

“I’m a mystery!” was what he managed to say after a very long time when maybe her hopes got up again.

She huffed a little laugh, “You sure are.”

He bowed again. How many bows was that? Thirty?

“If you’ll excuse me, I–”

“It’s fine,” she smiled. “Go chase him down. Tell him I was a terrible kisser and you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.”

“Well it wasn’t that bad, but you really should ask,” he scratched his head before realizing that Akaashi would not say that. There really wasn’t any lower he could get in the hole he’d been digging, so he bowed again.

Then he turned and ran back to the school in a way that Akaashi definitely wouldn’t, trying to find himself.


	5. After Practice

Practice was nightmarish. If morning practice had been bad, this was infinitely worse because he wasn’t allowed to do anything. His prohibition on activity unfortunately didn’t affect his energy levels at all. They were ridiculously high, but what else would he have expected. He spent six days a week with Bokuto. He knew how things were. 

But it was infinitely more annoying to succumb to fidgeting than to watch someone else fidget. He felt an intense sense of guilt for every impatient thought he had ever had on the subject.

“You know the rules, Bokuto,” Suzumeda lounged next to him on some gym mats, “you’re not allowed to play for three days after you twist that ankle. If you’d just wear a brace, like coach tells you to, this wouldn’t be–”

“I can’t jump right with that thing on!” he whined defensively. He really couldn’t. The brace was a tradeoff: stability for agility. He and Bokuto had discussed it over several weeks of extended practice. Bokuto had even demonstrated. The eventual decision had been that Bokuto would go to a physical therapist. He’d learned exercises for his ankle that he did at home, as well as proper stance, and they had helped. Until Akaashi managed to undo all his hard work.

“Sure you can’t…” Suzumeda took a long sip of water.

“’Medaaaaaaa!”

Akaashi was so sick of speaking like this. He was tired of half the teaching staff either condescending to him or treating him like he was incompetent. He was weary of talking constantly, of being surrounded by people who felt he owed them his attention. Friends, enemies, whoever, each conversation participant had an elaborate dance of their own. Cruel, kind it didn’t matter, just a series of intricate steps that he had to learn. One that was different for each person.

Akaashi danced the conversational equivalent of a simple waltz. With everyone.

All this was bad enough, completely exhausting on its own. But given the over-the-top emotional reactions that he had only somewhat adapted to, he was worn to the bone. The day wasn’t even over. He’d have to go home to the Bokuto family. He’d have to pretend there as well, smiling and eating with them even though he didn’t want to smile. He just wanted quiet.

But Akaashi had come to realize that there was only one quiet place in the life of Bokuto Koutarou, and that that place was _him_. 

His earlier anger started to boil again, as he watched Bokuto flub up the fifteenth toss in a row. They were in the middle of a practice match against Shinzen, and “Akaashi” looked like a complete and utter ass in front of other players he respected. Bokuto was shredding his dignified life into tiny little pieces.

Not to mention other things.

He felt like an absolute idiot. This unrestrainable brain had forced him to consider things he did not want to think about. That much was understandable and though it was frustrating, he couldn’t resent Bokuto for it. But as a result, he had spent the entire morning thinking about nothing but Bokuto. What their relationship really was. Were they really best friends? If so, what did that mean? He even considered where things between them might go, a pillowy, sugary feeling that was now lumpy and sticky.

Because what kind of a _best friend_ kisses girls in said best friend’s body after being specifically told not to? Perhaps the same kind of individual who doesn’t even tell someone he’s his _best friend_ in the first place.

He had to calm down. It was profoundly difficult to separate emotions from reality in this brain, but Akaashi dug fingernails into his wrist and focused on the pain. Bokuto had not kissed Sato-san in any sort of calculated way, he told himself. Even with Akaashi’s brain he wasn’t like that.

_But he’d still done it._

“What are you doing?” Suzumeda asked, looking pointedly at his hand.

“An experiment,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You’re so weird, you know that?” she snorted.

“You shouldn’t speak to your senpai like that,” he said, immediately regretting his flat tone and word choice. Bokuto would have whined. Or yelled. Or whine-yelled.

Suzumeda started, and gave him a look, “You okay, ace? You know we all like weird, right? Have you talked to Saru for more than two minutes? That guy is out of his mind. This whole team is crazy.”

The sound of a whistle broke their eye contact.

“Speaking of crazy, this is the worst game Akaashi’s ever played in his life.”

 

The match ended early because Yamiji-san’s wife had gone into labor. Everyone was too excited after that to play another set. Akaashi had the best conversation he could manage with Shinzen’s captain as they packed up for the train. He even made a few ridiculous jibes about Komi’s girlfriend as the rest of the team left. It was the captains’ responsibility to lock up, but Bokuto was still in the locker room.

He had a strong desire to never speak to him again, which was irrational and ridiculous, especially considering their current predicament. Also, of all the people in his life Akaashi could or would cut out, Bokuto was probably the last.

But that was hard to remember as he pushed open the door.

Despite looking different in Akaashi’s body, dejected mode was obviously more a function of Bokuto’s psyche than his brain. He was standing facing the lockers, running his fingers over his knuckles almost in mockery of Akaashi’s nervous habit. Everyone was gone, there was no longer any need for artifice. But he doubted Bokuto even thought about what he was doing. That abysmal fidgeting was probably just muscle-memory by now.

The list of Bokuto’s weaknesses was fifty-three items long, and the first item was “Shuts down after consistent failure.” Akaashi had originally labeled it as the original “dejected mode” but it turned out that the miserable state was a result of many other things, so he’d become more specific. Currently Bokuto was teetering on the edge. At least, as far as Akaashi could figure since none of the physical tells were clearly present. Were Bokuto in his own brain, he probably would have shut down halfway through the first set, but he had powered through three, probably due to Konoha’s backup more than anything else.

Akaashi, on the other hand, had completely drained his emotional stability just by sitting on the sidelines. Suzumeda had been no help she’d just laughed at him.

“We need to leave, Bokuto-san. Everyone else is gone.”

Bokuto nodded. “Can I have a minute, please?” he asked. His vivacity was replaced with a cold flatness that Akaashi recognized immediately.  

“You don’t have to talk like me for the time being.”

Bokuto turned and tripped over his own feet before he sat down on the bench. “Sorry. I just’ve been doin’ it all day,” he heaved a sigh that was enormous enough to be mildly offensive.

Akaashi sat down too so that they were back to back. There was no point in straining his ankle more than he needed to. There was a long space of quiet between them that would have felt very nice if it weren’t the calm before the inevitable storm of self-doubt.

“Akaashi?”

“Yes, Bokuto-san?”

“How long has everybody kinda… just put up with me? Like, they all talk to me now, or well, _you_ , like I’m this big pain in the ass that you have to take care of. And I can even see it, you know, the way they act around you cause they think you’re me. So, I’m feeling kinda sad I guess? I thought we were all friends, but now I sort of feel like everybody is just taking care of me. Especially you.”

There had always been someone raw and dark inside of Akaashi. A bitter, angry, terrible creature who stayed locked away because he was someone Akaashi did not ever want to be. A little boy who had spent most of his childhood with busy adults and grew up as sharp as the pottery shards he’d played with because toys were too heavy to pack. A little boy who had grown up with a vicious manipulative disposition. A person that Akaashi would always keep behind walls of steel.

But Bokuto’s brain could not contain him.

“I can’t believe how blind you are,” he said, as quiet and cold as his new voice allowed.

Bokuto turned, making a startled noise very close to Akaashi’s ear.

It made perfect sense, why Bokuto felt this way. The day must have been incredibly painful. And of course, he didn’t understand. Akaashii huffed out a breath, struggling within himself, trying to say what was necessary without cruelty.

He failed.

“Of course you need handling, Bokuto-san!”

Behind him Bokuto made a noise like he’d been kicked. Akaashi didn’t want to be so close in this situation. He stood up and started to pace along the bench. The words were a pressure at the top of his throat, like he’d run too long and too hard and had to breathe. He couldn’t hold them back.

“You’re the most vulnerable person I’ve ever met. You put every issue of any sort of importance out for everyone to see. All the time. You allow opposing teams to witness your frustrations and weakness. Then other players, the ones like me, can exploit them. And believe me, they try.”

Bokuto didn’t respond, he just collapsed into himself. Akaashi’s irritation grew into fury. How could Bokuto not understand that, good or bad, people actually _felt_ something about him as a person? As opposed to a well-organized pretty face that they could use to enhance their social standing or academic success.

“Do you have any idea how many people care for you?” he shouted, standing still while climbing to the top of his toes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this loud, but he knew well enough that the habits he was enacting were those of a child. “You inspire something in others, you idiot! They adore you, they want to keep you safe! Not just the team, but your classmates, some of your teachers–”

Bokuto turned. He was crying, big fat tears that looked disgusting and vulnerable on Akaashi’s face. It wasn’t clear if he’d understood that what Akaashi was saying was a twisted form of kindness. Why couldn’t he ever be kind? It didn’t matter if he was in the brain of someone gentle and guileless, he was still, at heart, a cold, cruel, calculating–

Akaashi kicked the lockers as hard as he possibly could. Which dented the one he made contact with almost all the way in.

“How _dare_ you?” he asked quietly, looking at his feet. “How dare you assume we don’t care. That… _I_ don’t…”

“Kaashi, I–”

He spun around and cut him off, “Do you know how many people in your class referred to me as your ‘best friend.’ Nearly everyone you’re friendly with, and yes, I know that is hardly all, but it is so many. The people who like you, like you _so very much_. And yes, that includes the team.” That was enough. He could stop, and calm down. He could explain to Bokuto quietly, evenly, that the team adored him.

He couldn’t.

“But your best friend?? You’ve never called me that, or told me how you felt about our interactions. I’ve never known with any certainty what I am to you other than someone who gives you what you want and keeps you under control.” The last part was terribly cruel. He wouldn’t blame Bokuto if he just left. And that wasn’t even what he meant, really. But how could he explain the desire to balance. To lift yourself up by keeping someone’s feet on the ground? He hadn’t even realized that was…

All of this… whatever it was, it was just so _much_. And he needed someone, something to ground him, like the cold shower. His head started to fill with a boiling darkness.

Bokuto did not leave.

“But you are my best friend!” he insisted, standing up. Much more quietly, with his head turned to his shoulder he added, “I just… figured you wouldn’t wanna be.”

“Perhaps not, if I’d known you were the sort who would use my body to kiss Sato Aya,” he spat, too far gone to stop.

Bokuto rounded the bench. He was angry now and they were standing face to face.

“She kissed me, Agaashee!” he stood on his toes so their eyes were even.

“You didn’t stop her, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi replied icily.

Bokuto threw his arms out. “I didn’t know how! I’ve never been kissed before!”

“Well neither have I!” Their faces were so close, and the idea that maybe they could, right then, kiss each other, was a thought that Akaashi could not ignore. It rose to the top, over anxiety over the future, over the chaos, over everything.  

But Bokuto could not read his mind.

“Sorry, Akaashi, that everybody wants to confess to you, but I haven’t been confessed to _ever_ so I didn’t know what was happening or how to stop it.”

Was he being _sarcastic?_

“Are you jealous?” he demanded with a desperation that Bokuto was certain not to notice.

Bokuto spun around like he was done with the conversation, took a step away, then spun back as he changed his mind. “Course I am! I mean, all these girls who’ve got the guts to confess to y–”

The look of dumb shock on Bokuto’s face was one that Akaashi swore to never make if he ever got his body back. But he could feel his own jaw drop as well.

It was a comment on Bokuto’s inherent athleticism how smoothly he jumped over the bench in a body that wasn’t his, how effortlessly he grabbed his bag as he flew, and how quickly he dashed out of the locker room. Akaashi tried to follow, but his ankle wrenched again and he fell against the lockers.

No one heard the terrible noise of frustration and anger he made, so it didn’t really exist.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a head's up:
> 
>  **tomorrow's chapter will fall somewhere between a M/E rating.**
> 
> after much consideration, i decided that i was not going to change the rating of the overall story for this content since it is in no way a story about sex. sorry to spoil, at least in this small way, but i want give those who want to avoid such content all opportunities to do so. in the chapter itself i will give markers that make the NSFW easy to skip. 
> 
> people often miss these notes, so i wanted to give more than a little advanced warning.


	6. Insecurities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This chapter contains NSFW content.**
> 
> If you would like to skip it, skip from the paragraph that starts with "Akaashi's bed..." to the paragraph that starts with "Like everything else..."
> 
> I decided not to change the story rating because this isn't a sexy story at all. But here is your warning!

Akaashi’s apartment was so lonely.

Really it was kinda the worst place to be when you felt like shit. But there Bokuto was, sitting next to the kotatsu. Not under it, just next to it. It wasn’t even turned on. The whole place was cold. His socks were wet thanks to a walk from the train with no umbrella. There wasn’t much he could do until he stopped shaking. He’d hardly been able to type in the key code to the door, his fingers were trembling too much.

From cold, and from other stuff.   

It was weird, getting yelled at about how much people cared about you. Well, not too weird. His parents did all the time. So, it was kinda maybe weirder getting yelled at by yourself about how much people cared about you. While Akaashi was inside you doing the yelling.

Not like that.  

But weird wasn’t bad. Weird made him feel really strange, and sad and happy at the same time. Weird was something he was trying as hard as he could to think about, because maybe what Akaashi had said could give a little context to some of the really rotten things he’d seen the team do to him. But he couldn’t focus on it.  

What made him feel bad was that he’d pretty much confessed. He’d tried to force the feelings into a locker, but they were too big. Akaashi’s brain wasn’t really good at big feelings like this. It tried to break them down into tiny little pieces, so that he could think about every one by itself. Which was good for some things, but maybe not people being in love with you. Cause if he was really honest with himself, Bokuto was in love with his setter. His vice-captain. His best friend. Even though it was a really stupid thing and you couldn’t be both, he was.

Not that Bokuto’s brain was good at feelings either. If he’d been himself, the stupid accidentally confession would have turned into something enormous. Every bad thing that he knew he was deep down would have turned into a ball of frantic emotions. Something that rolled around in his head till he couldn’t do anything anymore.

Everybody called it dejected mode, even though they’d never told him about it. He hated that name. He wished that there was something else they could say that didn’t make it sound like he was doing it on purpose. Like it was a button he could turn off and on whenever he got his shit together. That if he was stronger, just worked harder, he’d stay in undejected mode and nobody would have to deal with him being such a hassle.

He was strong. _He worked hard._ He carried the team the best he could, which was pretty damn great, considering they were going to Nationals again. Good enough to be the number four high school ace in all of Japan _._ How could you do all that and still be a hassle? A handful? Or did everyone treat him like they did because they needed him for volleyball? Just using him to get what they wanted. Akaashi said they liked him. But… how could think he was a handful and like him at the same time?

It didn’t make sense.

There wasn’t anything to do sitting next to the kotatsu. He might be a handful, but he was hungry and no one could feed him right now but himself.

 

The buzzing feeling started when the omurice was finished and he was sitting down to eat it. He’d turned on the kotatsu and the television to see that ice skating anime that Riko and Hoshi liked so much. He had no idea what was going on with that, so he switched to some game show that was really stupid and really funny.

By the time he finished his dinner, it kinda felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin. The buzzing had managed to stick itself under his bellybutton and it stayed there. Even though the feeling was different than what he was used to, it was pretty obvious what it was. Except he was too distracted by the sensation to realize it. He started bouncing his leg, and stopped paying attention to the television. Not really focusing on anything, one hand started gripping his thigh, the other slowly rubbing his abs.

He realized he had a semi about the same time his phone hooted with a text from Akaashi.

_> >As I said this morning, just take care of it Bokuto-san. _

 

Akaashi’s bed was softer than he expected. It felt like he was somewhere kinda fancy, not trapped in someone else’s really horny body about to take that guy’s dick out. Well, thinking like that reminded him that he was, in fact, doing those things, but still. He was in a nice, soft bed, maybe in a hotel or something. Not a love hotel, a hotel because… because they were in Brazil! Playing volleyball for some super special thing that he’d made up for the fantasy. He and Akaashi would share a room for captainy reasons, but there would only be one big bed when they got there. Bokuto would offer to sleep in the tub, or on the floor, and Akaashi would say _that’s ridiculous, Bokuto-san._

They’d take showers, Akaashi would go first, and then…

Bokuto slid off his track pants, leaving himself in just his underwear. Akaashi’s bedroom was cold. He had a dumb hope that maybe the temperature would calm down whatever it was that made him want to jerk it in front of two mirrors so he could see Akaashi’s panting face and tight little ass at the same time. So he could watch what kind of faces he made when he–

No. He was not gonna bring this weird body switched situation into it. He was just going to have a regular fantasy like when he got himself off normally. And Akaashi was involved in those a lot. So as long as he didn’t look at Akaashi in any way shape or form, he could pretend it was just his regular body and he was jerkin it at Akaashi’s apartment for some reason.  That was weird, but didn’t cross any of the lines he’d decided on.

So back to Brazil.

Bokuto would just be in his towel, one of those big Western ones. He’d be dripping a little when he came out of the bathroom, and Akaashi would be in their bed, naked somehow. He never really took the time to figure out why he was naked in this sort of fantasy, but nerves insisted on more of a story this time. So he tried to fill in the blanks.

Tried.

He’d be lying there, big feet, strong calves, thick thighs and...

All Bokuto had to do was look, just pull down his briefs and look to see what _and_ looked like. But he wasn’t going to do that, because in the crazy chance that maybe, just maybe, he and Akaashi did this someday, he wanted to see him for the first time from the outside. So he did what he always did, assumed that Akaashi was naked and skipped to his face.

Akaashi would smile a little, really a little it wouldn’t be convincing otherwise and say something about blowing off steam and then Bokuto would ask why and his hand was slipping into his briefs and he was hard and unfamiliar in his unfamiliar hand. But a dick was still a dick and he could probably figure it out.

Back in the hotel room he was imagining, they were both on the bed somehow, and Bokuto was dripping water from his hair all over the place. Akaashi was across from him, just a little too far too kiss, and he’d lean to kiss him, and Akaashi would roll away and say _you’re going to need to work harder, Bokuto-san._

He wrapped his fingers around Aka– no, himself, and gave a tentative stroke.

It was like the first time he discovered getting off for real. He didn’t know where anything was, or what felt good but he knew it felt _fucking great_. There was already enough pre to last him at least halfway through, or maybe less he didn’t know how long or short this was going to take. He moved his hand a little different and his toes curled.

 _I’ve been thinking about this for a long time_ Akaashi would say, because he was under Bokuto and they were kissing, and bumping against each other just a little bit. Bokuto could open his mouth and just say it in his voice so he’d know what it sounded like. But he didn’t. He was already taking this too far, even though Akaashi had told him and texted and basically demanded that he do it. He knew why now. Akaashi was like, the horniest person in the world. Well maybe not, he’d only ever been inside two bodies before.

Not like that.

But Akaashi was definitely hornier than him. And he felt so good… _back_ in the fantasy where they were just grinding, because really Bokuto hadn’t ever done anything else (or even that, actually). He could pretty much get off in like thirty seconds thinking about any version of Akaashi and he was gonna now his legs were tight and trembling and his abs were tensing so much that he was going to snap in half, and his mouth dropped open and he couldn’t close it and this sweet whine came out that he couldn’t stop and he forgot everything else in the world except that sound so when he came, he came all over Akaashi’s practice shirt, all the way up to his chin.

He lay there, breathing heavily, feeling the difference in the way Akaashi took breaths, in the way the heavy blissed-out feeling soaked through everything. The way he felt from the inside out. With the back of his hand, he wiped off his chin. He wouldn’t look at the cum, he _wouldn’t_ , just wiped it off on his shirt. Akaashi’s shirt. Which he had to wash right away, and Akaashi would come home and see it hanging to dry and he’d know. He’d know.

Like everything else he already knew. Like he knew that Bokuto wanted to confess to him, the way no boys ever confessed to other boys in their school. Like he knew what it was like inside Bokuto’s head, how crazy it was, and how wild.

He pulled the shirt over his head so that it was inside out, then threw it on the floor. He pulled up his underwear, then pulled on the track pants. He shimmied up the bed until he could slip under the covers.

Akaashi’s brain didn’t feel like crying that often. It was calm, and when things weren’t calm it made it so they were. Sometimes things were too much, and he just stopped existing for a little bit, but even that was calm. His brain had places for bad feelings where you could keep them safe so they didn’t run wild. But like the big feelings, the bad ones didn’t always fit either.

So when shame and loneliness and fear filled Bokuto’s mind, there was no place left for them. And these sad feelings weren’t anything like the ones his brain ramped up and made worse. They weren’t overwhelming, they didn’t fill his brain until he wanted to scream.

No. They were just sad.

What if Akaashi never wanted to talk to him again once they fixed this? What if he thought Bokuto’s mind was just crazy? It _was_ , but Akaashi’d never had to live in it before. What if he thought it was the scary kind of crazy, the kind that was _too much_? The kind that broke one day and the person left over was useless.

Akaashi knew now, he knew what it was like. But that didn’t mean it would be okay. That didn’t mean he’d stick around, especially now that he knew how Bokuto felt about him.

The sheets he’d wrapped himself in smelled like Akaashi. He wanted to bury himself in the smell and pretend that everything was alright.

But it wasn’t.

It was lonely in Akaashi’s apartment. Nobody heard Bokuto cry like he’d never cried in his life. He cried till Akaashi’s low, quiet voice was hoarse and nearly gone. He cried until his body was trembling because he was so exhausted.

He cried until his phone hooted again.

 _> >I am coming over for a ‘sleepover.’ Leaving your house now_.  

                                   


	7. Sleepover

He rang the doorbell to his own apartment. Bokuto always rang, and the neighbors might get suspicious if he put in the keycode.

They probably wouldn’t.

The real reason was that he just didn’t want to interrupt anything. He’d texted Bokuto an hour ago, but the threat of extreme awkwardness was just too high to risk. There was a lot more explaining he could have done about why he had pushed the matter of masturbation. But the jist of it was, if they couldn’t get back in their own bodies, Bokuto was going to wake up in the morning with a humiliating mess to deal with. Hopefully that wouldn’t even be an issue. That’s why Akaashi was here. But it was still a risk.

Since it was Akaashi’s body, he was the one who had to take responsibility, undignified as it was. This wasn’t generally the sort of thing that Akaashi found embarrassing. Masturbation was a perfectly normal bodily function and nothing to be uncomfortable with. But pulling Bokuto into his self-pleasuring schedule took the act from mundane to mortifying.

Not that Akaashi didn’t deserve to be humiliated at this point. His own lack of control had driven him to cruelty. He’d provoked Bokuto in a way that certainly seemed like manipulation – something he was trying to do less and less even before this had happened. But this instance hadn’t fooled Bokuto into playing his best. It had tricked him into an admission Bokuto had been denying to everyone he knew.

Maybe even himself.

If Akaashi were himself, he would have resolved the situation before Bokuto had left the locker room. But he hadn’t. He felt dirty and he couldn’t stop thinking about how out of control and terrible he’d been. More and more elements of Bokuto’s personality were becoming clear in the light of situations like this. They were coping mechanisms, ways to encourage himself, to calm himself down.

But they were also Bokuto, still a real part of his personality. Just like him, they were sometimes annoying or simple or both.

Bokuto often spoke of himself in ways that were larger than life. His self-aggrandizing behavior ran the gamut from endearing to obnoxious. It wasn’t that he lacked the skill that he boasted about. He was in many ways even more talented than he realized, though Akaashi would be the last person on earth to share that information. But skilled or not, it was excessive, distracting, and often embarrassing. Akaashi had always taken Bokuto’s swaggering as a terrible habit, something that needed to eventually stop if he was to participate with any team other than Fukurodani.

He was coming to realize it was less bluster than he originally thought. Although still quite a bit. Bokuto, no matter who he was, was still obnoxious. Still oblivious. Still gentle. Still kind.

The door swung open and Bokuto stood there in fresh clothes. His hair was wet from a shower, and he’d dried it so aggressively with a towel that Akaashi’s curls were frizzing. Even though the entryway was completely unobstructed, it felt like there was something heavy and unsurpassable between them.

“I am sorry,” Akaashi said, tipping his head down to make eye contact, which they both quickly ended.

He realized as soon as the words were out of his mouth that he wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. His tone? The aggression that had led Bokuto to say what he’d said? This whole situation which really seemed to be his fault?

Bokuto looked down, completely humiliated. “I didn’t look when I did it,” he muttered.

Oh. That’s what he took the apology for. Of course it was.

Akaashi chuckled unexpectedly, “I’m impressed, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto turned bright red and stepped back from the door. The barrier was gone, and Akaashi followed like a guest, announcing himself even though it was his own home.

“I told your mother that you were ill and I had to come take care of you, perhaps overnight,” he said as he unlaced his shoes. “I had no idea how much your parents worry that I live alone. Please tell them it’s unnecessary. I’ve done this for years.”

“Akaashi!” Bokuto crouched down so they were face to face. “It’s not like it’s normal! I worry about you too! What if you slip in the shower, or choke on some food, or like, a hornet gets in…”  

“You’d show up with the police if I were late for practice. Also, I would simply leave and call an exterminator if there was a hornet.”

There was a pause, a hollow empty one that needed to be filled. The tension from the locker rooms was still there, and they could either discuss it, or distract from it.

“But I appreciate your family’s concern. And yours, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto grinned. “Don’t you ever worry Akaashi. I got you.”  

“I am also always available when you need help,” he said. It felt desperately important to say, and by Bokuto’s reaction, it was.

He tipped his head and grabbed his shoulder the way he might during the middle of a game after a really good spike. “I know that already, Kaashi.”

But it wasn’t the middle of a game, and after a few seconds Bokuto pulled his hand back like he’d done something unforgivable. The conversation after practice hung even heavier. They could resolve it with a serious talk. In fact they probably should do that before anything.

“I think I know how to reverse our situation.”

Or they could resolve everything.

 

They sat on Akaashi’s bed, one of Bokuto’s raggedy notebooks between them. On a random page in the middle Akaashi had written the results of his research.

“Obviously, this is not something that happens,” he began. Bokuto was not really listening, he was trying to read the notebook, which was upside down from his angle. “However, I did research on the urban legend of body switching before I came over.” He decided not to mention all of Bokuto’s hilarious, ridiculous, and risqué autocompleted searches.

“Urban legends? Like Sadako and shit?”

“They don’t have to be scary, just narratives that are not real, but are pervasive. And modern, otherwise they’d simply be legends. In our case… one of them seems to be somehow real. Anyway, I discovered four general trends that seem to go along with switching bodies.”

“Yeah, okay? So like, what made us like this then?”

Akaashi sighed, “I suspect it was my birthday wish.”

“You wished we’d switch bodies?!?” Bokuto stopped trying to figure out the kanji and instead gazed in shock at the two extra heads Akaashi had apparently sprouted.

He could lie. Maybe he should lie. But he decided that wasn’t fair.

“I wished you would understand the perspectives of others.”

Bokuto sat up straight if only to improve the intensity of his slouch, “Oh.”

“If it is any consolation I have also gained perspective, so I believe whoever grants such wishes was trying to teach me a lesson.”

Based on Bokuto’s silence, it was not any consolation. There was nothing to do but continue on.

“We have four options then. Since I doubt the new year counts, we could make another wish during your birthday. But we would have to wait nearly a year for that. Falling down the stairs together might work, but it is extremely dangerous. Cracking our heads together is another solution, though it could cause concussion and put one or both of us out of commission for nationals.”

He swallowed.

“That’s only three,” Bokuto said, curiosity slowly bringing him out of his sulk. “What’s the last one?”

His fingers were fiddling together while he tried to find the right words. “The last one is what we’re going to do, as long as you’re willing.”

“Akaashi you’re being really shifty about thi–”

“We’re going to kiss.”

 

“So, we’re really gonna do this, then?” Bokuto was kneeling on the floor next to Akaashi’s bed. He still moved liked Akaashi’s body took up more space than it did. They were on the floor because kissing on the bed was too much. Bokuto hadn’t said that, but Akaashi suspected that Bokuto wouldn’t be willing to exchange a pragmatic kiss anywhere that was comfortable. His respect for Akaashi’s body, consent, and perceived innocence was aggressive, though not unexpected.

In response to Bokuto’s nervous question, Akaashi nodded and knelt in front of him, the extra cushion of Bokuto’s ass pressing against his heels. “Everything else requires we injure ourselves. This is the most sensible option. If we smash our heads together, either of us could get a concussion. You might never be able to play again.”

Bokuto looked at him with serious eyes.

“But this is your first kiss, Akaashi.”

There it was. The softness that he’d been trying to ignore for months before this had even happened. This solution wasn’t supposed to be soft. It was cold and practical and meant nothing. It was something they were doing to preserve Bokuto’s career and Akaashi’s intellect.

“If it’s mine, it’s yours as well,” was all he could think to say in response.

Bokuto shook his head, “But that girl today, she kissed–”

“My lips,” Akaashi interrupted. “And you said you didn’t want her to.”

“She just grabbed me!” Bokuto’s hands were flying. “I wouldn’t have kissed her, even if it was just me in my body. I didn’t even know her, and like…” his eyes flickered up to Akaashi’s face and down to the floor.

Akaashi cleared his throat, “Your interests lie elsewhere.”

There was a sigh, and then Bokuto gave him a wry, sad smile, “Spose they do. Well, we might as well get down to it.” He reached over to take Akaashi’s hands.

“Wait.”

Bokuto pulled back, lifting his eyebrow in confusion.

“You are my best friend, Bokuto-san.” Akaashi said.

And then he leaned in, grasped his shoulders, and kissed him.

 

They did not know how to kiss. Which was fine, it was supposed to be short.

Only it wasn’t. Their lips moved sloppily, earnestly against each other while Akaashi realized with quite a bit of cold, calculated certainty that Bokuto was not simply his best friend. He could not feel such nonplatonic feelings in the bounds of a solely platonic relationship. Feelings that surged against the walls of his mind like waves. Terrifying and beautiful and out of control.

He pushed forward and Bokuto pressed back, until Akaashi found himself leaning backwards from the force of Bokuto’s hands on his shoulders. Thick, blunt fingers, pushing him back much further than…

With a gasp, he opened his eyes.

Bokuto’s eyelashes were so thick, a pale grey color that made them look nearly invisible from a distance. But they weren’t. They looked like the curls of early morning frost across a windowpane. The lashes flew open, revealing Bokuto’s eyes accompanied by a tiny stuttered breath. When Akaashi had looked at them in the mirror, these same eyes had seemed a dull, sickly yellow. Bokuto filled them with sparkling golden fire.

“You’re so much prettier than me, Agaashee,” Bokuto blurted out. “I mean, when I was in you. Not like that, though. You know what I mean.”

Akaashi nodded, soaking in the blissful calm of his own mind, despite the fact that he was in Bokuto’s arms, dipped back, and there was an ocean of affection filling every corner of his existence.

“You have more muscles than I thought you did,” Bokuto said, squeezing his shoulders. His fingers were trembling.

“Likewise.” Akaashi’s chest heaved, twice, and then he leaned in and kissed him again, muttering that they had to make sure the change was permanent, though that was only really a quarter of the reason.

This kiss lasted even longer, but eventually they pulled away, still themselves but breathing even harder.

“Akaashi.” Bokuto’s voice was tiny and shocked. And despite the overwhelming desire to kiss him again, Akaashi didn’t. He sat back on his heels and felt his hands worry in front of him stomach.

He was in his own brain. One not guided by emotional outbursts or overwhelming chaotic feelings. He was himself. And yet the only thing he wanted to do was kiss Bokuto again. To continue kissing him until perhaps they got hungry, which, considering the meal he’d had at the Bokuto household, would be some time from now. He wanted this from a person he hadn’t even considered a friend until several hours ago. “Realized” was perhaps a better word for what had happened but still. The feeling that Bokuto elicited had grown too large to compartmentalize. Akaashi tried to pull apart the situation as he always did, but it was immensely complicated and bound to emotions. Emotions that were distant, hard to reach, hard to understand, and even harder to express.

He had no idea what to say but he wanted to say so much.

They sat for some time, just staring at each other and breathing. The trauma of switching back while conscious was intense. Perhaps moreso for Bokuto who had dived back into chaos. Or perhaps just less so for Akaashi because he had fallen into something much deeper than his own mind.

How was he supposed to describe what had happened to him? Without the wildness of Bokuto’s brain, he felt as though he had lost the language he needed. He wanted to relearn it but he didn’t know how.

“I ah… think I’m gonna go home,” Bokuto stood up, dusting off his pants like there was something there. “I’ll tell mom and dad you were feeling better, maybe you just ate something bad.”

Why was he leaving? Bokuto had already confessed, albeit in roundabout ways. He was supposed to want to stay, and then…

Akaashi tried to pull together the emotional intensity that could fuel a description of his own feelings on the subject. Something that would to keep Bokuto from walking out after they’d just kissed each other.  He found himself instead trying to decide set of specific circumstances that would drive Bokuto to go.

He couldn’t even manage to ask him to stay for no reason other than his company.

They walked to the front of the apartment in silence, Akaashi’s hands fretting behind his back while Bokuto quietly put on his shoes then opened the door.

“You took good care of me, Akaashi,” Bokuto stood tall, his overnight bag over his shoulder. It didn’t take someone who knew him well to see that he was holding himself together by a thread, but he stood tall anyway. “Made me realize some stuff I’d never thought about before. Made me think about what everybody else was thinkin. I know it was probably pretty wild being in my head and stuff. So like, I hope you don’t think I’m too crazy. You probably need some time in the quiet to think about stuff. So, I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

Before Akaashi could say anything, Bokuto was gone. He went to follow, but fell into the genkan, his feet suddenly too big.

_I wish Bokuto-san understood the perspective of someone other than himself._

A person should be careful what he wishes for. 


	8. Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's been art for this fic!!
> 
> i'd like to thank kjinyu for his [art](http://kjinyu.tumblr.com/post/154195685945/silvercistern-made-a-bokuaka-bodyswap-fic-and-it) and akaashikun for [hers](http://punkyachi.tumblr.com/post/156214376296/im-hooked-on-silvercisterns-bodyswap-au-and-i)!

“So have you made any plans about Christmas with Akaaasheeee?”

Hoshi leaned on her desk like she knew something he didn’t. Which she probably did, since she spent most of yesterday talking to someone who wasn’t him. Maybe he could have found all that out, but he’d left Akaashi’s apartment in order to keep from kissing him until he told him to stop.

He might as well be honest.

“Think I’m gonna spend it alone this year.” Well, not totally honest. It wasn’t like his Christmas would be lonely. He’d hang out with his sisters and mom and dad. There’d be some presents, then the twins would have Mario Kart battles and Riko would curl up under the kotatsu, texting her boyfriend in Malaysia until she fell asleep.

A lot better than most people got.

The blank notebook he’d stolen from Akaashi was open in front of him. He was trying to draw an owl that maybe they could use on a poster or something. It wasn’t a very good owl, but he didn’t have a picture to draw from. The page before it was full of perfect Akaashis, even though no Akaashis had been around when he’d been drawing them, so maybe he was just shitty at drawing owls.

“You’re giving up?” Hoshi made her sympathetic face. He didn’t like it, because he didn’t want her to feel bad for him. But if he actually explained what happened, she’d probably feel worse. Not that he was going to talk about it. Although he was kinda allowed since they hadn’t really made any post-swapping rules.

Or talked about anything, really.

“I just don’t think it’s gonna work out,” he said. The overwhelming bad feelings that he’d been so relieved to not have to deal with hovered at his shoulder, but he was doing what his therapist said to do: diverting his attentions. Or whatever it was she’d said exactly.

Diverting it by drawing an owl that was starting to look like a drunk cat. He gave it a crest like Kuroo so it was funny at least.

“Why not?” Hoshi asked, because she was the pushiest person in the world who wasn’t a sister.

If she had been at practice that morning, she’d have understood.

It was like Akaashi was sending his tosses over some kinda wall. Before they’d switched bodies, it was tough to tell what was going on in Akaashi’s head. Bokuto had always tried though, cause he’d get it right at least some of the time, and it wasn’t like Akaashi was gonna tell him. When they played, though, it was less hard. They had a thing going on, where they communicated pretty well even without talking. So Bokuto could at least read Akaash sometimes.

But now it had turned impossible. You’d think that being in Akaashi’s brain would have helped, but it had made things even worse. Now that Bokuto knew some of the details they got in the way. He fixated on the lockers and how far away feelings were from whatever was going on in the present moment. What kinda things was Akaashi not letting himself think about?

What was it like to go from Bokuto’s head to something so organized, anyway? And after… well after yesterday, Bokkuto hadn’t been certain if he was supposed to talk to him or not. He’d wanted to. Actually, he had. When a particularly good spike had rattled some of the lights in the ceiling, he’d turned and asked, _wasn’t it awesome, Akaashi?_

He’d gotten a little nod then Akaashi had turned around to talk to Washio.

Komi ended up bouncing at his side, telling him how awesome he was almost the instant he felt himself start to get upset. Which almost made him pissed but then it didn’t. Because Akaashi said that everyone on the team was his friends. Friends who tried to help, even if it meant distracting him.

Kind of like this terrible owl cat distraction he was scribbling over because it was just not any good.

“I didn’t tell him the truth,” he told Hoshi.

She gave him a look. “Well he shouldn’t be mad about that. You didn’t tell yourself the truth until like, right now. Really I’m surprised that we’re having this conversation. I sort of want to buy you a milkbread or something.”

Saying he didn’t deserve a milkbread was dramatic, he knew that even before he got perspective or whatever, but he thought it like twelve times because he was still pretty much the same person. Just a little more aware of people. And a little more confused about them.

“I’m gonna run and do that, actually,” Hoshi grabbed her enormous pink sparkly wallet with a Killua Zoldyck charm hanging from the zipper. “He should be heading down here soon, so you guys can go off to your secret place and have your special lunch together.”

“Hoooooshiiiiiiiii!”

Most of his other friends were already gone, so he just sat and drew another picture of Akaashi because apparently he was all he could draw. Normally he didn’t like being left alone but right now he sort of needed it.

“What’s going on, ace?”

Of course, Nakihara was still around.

“Are you drawing one of your teammates?” he asked with disgust, leaning down to stare at the paper. “Bokuto, you are such a creep.”

“Why do you care?”

It was something Akaashi would say, if he had to say anything. But it was maybe a good thing to say instead of just yelling back like usual.

Nakihara looked at him like he’d just pulled out a knife. “Cause I don’t want you being a creep around the class! There are girls here, and they need to be protected. That pretty guy is like a girl, isn’t he?”

“He’s not in our class. And you hit on three girls yesterday. One of them cried about it.”

He only knew because Hoshi had wanted to talk about it that morning. Really that’s all she’d wanted to talk about most of the day.

“Maybe you shouldn’t make girls cry,” he looked back down at the notebook just in time to hear a girl clearing her throat. He looked up and made a strangled sort of noise.

Perfect Circle smiled down at him. She looked, well, kinda nice compared to yesterday. But maybe that was because the look she gave Nakihara was terrifying.

“Ryouta-kun, if you ever make my neighbor cry again, I’m going to raise your voice an octave _permanently_.”

Nakihara left the classroom without another word.

“Bokuto-kun, right?” she looked back at him again. It was weird, because yesterday she’d been kinda… really mean about him, even though she’d thought she was talking to Akaashi. She’d been pretty mean to Akaashi too. He didn’t know what was going on.

“Uh, yeah,” he snapped the notebook shut, “that’s me.”

“I have to say,” she looked at her black-painted fingernails. They weren’t allowed, but she was probably scary enough that the teachers didn’t say anything. “I thought badly of you before this. Assumed that you were just some dumb athlete. But one of my best friends cried all night because of that asshole, and I haven’t heard any other boy put him in his place. So you’re clearly not a mindless idiot.”

He grinned, “Hell yeah, I’m awesome.”

“Maybe somewhere in the middle,” she smacked her lips. “Anyway, one of my classmates wants to talk to you. I’m sure you’re used to confessions, I imagine you’re quite popular. Anyway, it’s in the usual spot, please be nice, and so on.”

“Is this your job?” he asked, too dumbstuck to say something sensible, like how he was definitely really popular, how did she know?

She laughed. It sounded like coughing. “In some way, I suppose. Everyone seems to think I’m terrifying enough to make the people I speak to do what I ask. Also I like it when others owe me favors. Run along now, Captain.”

 

He didn’t know any girls in Akaashi’s class. He only knew Akaashi.

He didn’t know any girls in Akaashi’s class. He only knew Akaashi.

So why was it so surprising when he turned the corner to that grassy place between the wings of the school that Akaashi was standing there?

But he was. Right there. In just his school jacket. Well, and gloves. He had a scarf on too, the blue one with the other blue and white bits that Bokuto had given him for his birthday. It was so soft, and it just looked cool, like something Akaashi would like. Bokuto couldn’t say why he thought that when he’d bought it. But then Konoha had given Akaashi a book he’d really wanted and Bokuto thought, he thought that Akaashi didn’t really like the scarf the most. And he’d really wanted him to.

Akaashi was wearing the scarf, not the book.

Bokuto took four steps until they were standing far enough apart that either of them could bow if they needed to. He was full of words and sounds and feelings that were fighting each other to get out, but he knew that if they escaped Akaashi would get smothered.

“Hey hey,” he said.

“I am sorry,” Akaashi said immediately. It was wrong. Bokuto was the one who had run off yesterday because the kissing and his heart and he _knew_ Akaashi was overwhelmed and needed quiet.

But Akaashi didn’t think it was wrong and if Bokuto opened his mouth he wouldn’t be able to shut it so he kept it shut tight.

“I was the one who needed perspective. In the process of getting it, I lost my temper with you in a moment of extreme vulnerability. I only let you in halfway to personal matters that I insisted you attend to. And yet you were respectful. You were kind. You were gentle and I now have a better reputation in my classroom as a result.”

He couldn’t keep his mouth closed any longer. “Me too, Agaaseee! I put Nakihara in his place today, just like that! Didn’t even get mad or yell or anything! And it made Perfect Circle really happy.”

Akaashi lifted his eyebrow. “You mean Mori-san? The student I sent to fetch you?”

Bokuto nodded, trying to keep his mouth shut for just a little bit more, because no matter what this was, he was gonna be making a lot of noise after he found out so he might as well wait.

“I’m glad.”

They were both quiet. Maybe it was time for Bokuto to apologize. He was ready, he could explain why he’d left, he’d practiced in his head since the minute he shut the door behind him.

“I lied yesterday.” Akaashi was using his normal voice that he was supposed to use for normal regular things. “I said you were my best friend.”

Okay so loud sad was what was coming up. He could call Kuroo during lunch. He always kept his phone on him like the sneaky bastard he was.

“Oh, uh, well, I mean I figured–”

“Bokuto-san please let me finish.”

Bokuto did.

“I have little experience with intimate relationships of all sorts. As you know, I’ve moved around frequently, making friendships a challenge. I also rarely got to see my parents interact in order to demonstrate a romantic intimacy model.”

Bokuto almost argued that he probably didn’t want that cause seeing your mom and dad making out was _weird_ but maybe it was weirder if you didn’t.

“It has taken me a profoundly long time to understand the definition of what I considered a friend. Understanding the elements of more intimate friendship, or having a best friend, took even longer. So my authority may be in question.”

“Nah, Akaashi, you’re a pretty smart guy.”

Akaashi breathed out and there was just a little bit of a smile after the air was all gone.

“What is the line between a best friend, and a romantic partner. Where is it drawn? With physical intimacy? With romantic words? How can one be both?”

“I’ve never had a girlfriend before. Or a boyfriend. Or… a best friend either. So… I dunno.”

Akaashi was still smiling, just a little bit, and Bokuto’s heart was going to burst.

“I have no idea myself,” he took a step forward so neither of them could bow. “But, I would like to try to find that line. And plant myself on it and stay as long as I can. Obviously this is not something to be done alone.”

Bokuto’s soul was going to jump out of his body for the second time in two days. Akaashi’s fancy words were confusing and he didn’t quite get it, but he knew well enough what this was leading up to.

“Will you accept my feelings, Bokuto-san?” Akaashi asked, quiet and even a little nervous, like anyone could possibly say no to him.

It was hard to talk, so Bokuto reached out and took one of Akaashi’s hands. He ran his thumb across the top of the knuckles, where he knew the skin was really sensitive. Was it okay, to touch somebody like this? He’d never been confessed to before, at least not when he was about to say yes.

He leaned down so he could be loud but quiet too. Halfway down, he realized he couldn’t make it pretty and he couldn’t make it smart.

So he kissed Akaashi instead.

His fourth kiss went the way he had kinda always dreamed his first would go. Akaashi was there. His lips were gnawed on and chapped, but they were kissing him back cause he meant it. There were hands on his waist and his hands were around Akaashi’s shoulders. It was cold all around but where they stood was a little sun of happiness in gross, boring December.

Akaashi said he liked him. Like that.  And what was even more important was this:

Bokuto believed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has, strangely, been the most challenging story i have yet written: done over a period of eight days, with about three hours allotted per chapter, addressing a ridiculously complicated premise. i'm writing a heist fic with multiple plots and twenty characters and it is easier to write than this has been. it was an experiment, a ridiculous one, and i am glad it is over although i do regret that had i written it over a longer period, i could have done oh who knows what, but you always question yourself.
> 
> so i really sincerely appreciate everyone who has read, commented, bookmarked, and reblogged this story. this is the most emotionally drained i've been by a project ever, and your encouragement kept me going.


End file.
